Work Hours Calculator
Calculate total hours worked in a shift, accounting for a clock-in time, clock-out time, and unpaid break.
Time convention: entered hours are wall-clock hours; daylight-saving changes are not automatically accounted for.
About the Work Hours Calculator
A work shift's paid hours are not simply clock-out minus clock-in — unpaid breaks need to be subtracted first. This calculator handles clock-in and clock-out times, including overnight shifts, and deducts any unpaid break time to give you the exact paid hours worked.
How It Works
The calculator finds the total elapsed time between clock-in and clock-out, automatically handling overnight shifts that cross midnight, then subtracts the unpaid break minutes you specify to arrive at the final paid hours worked.
Paid Hours = (Clock Out − Clock In, wrapped over midnight if needed) − Break Minutes, converted to hours.
Worked example
Scenario: Clocking in at 8:45 AM and out at 5:15 PM with a 30-minute unpaid lunch.
- Shift length: 17:15 − 08:45 = 8 hours 30 minutes (510 minutes).
- Subtract the break: 510 − 30 = 480 minutes.
- Hours worked: 480 ÷ 60 = 8.0 hours.
Result: 8 hours worked.
Common shifts, including overnight
The calculator subtracts clock-in from clock-out, adds 24 hours when the shift crosses midnight, then removes the unpaid break. These examples show the results it returns:
| Clock in | Clock out | Unpaid break | Hours (decimal) | Hours and minutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 | 17:30 | 30 min | 8.00 | 8h 0m |
| 08:30 | 17:00 | 45 min | 7.75 | 7h 45m |
| 22:00 | 06:30 | 30 min | 8.00 | 8h 0m |
| 07:00 | 19:00 | 60 min | 11.00 | 11h 0m |
| 13:00 | 21:15 | 15 min | 8.00 | 8h 0m |
Payroll systems usually want decimal hours, so minutes are divided by 60: 15 minutes is 0.25, 30 is 0.50 and 45 is 0.75. A common mistake is writing 7 hours 45 minutes as 7.45 instead of 7.75, which underpays the shift by 18 minutes. Enter only unpaid breaks; paid rest breaks count as time worked. For a full week with overtime and pay, use the timesheet calculator, which takes clock-in and clock-out times for each day.
Tips and common mistakes
- Overnight shifts are handled automatically: 22:00 to 06:00 with a 30-minute break is 7.5 hours.
- Paid breaks shouldn't be entered — only subtract time you aren't paid for.
- Add a week of daily results in the Timesheet Calculator to check for overtime.
Assumptions & Limitations
- Assumes the break time is entirely unpaid and should be subtracted from gross elapsed time.
- Handles shifts that cross midnight by treating the clock-out time as occurring on the following day if it is earlier than clock-in.
- If a shift includes multiple separate breaks, add them together into the single break-minutes field before calculating.
Work hours, breaks, and overtime
Worked hours are the time between start and finish minus unpaid breaks. Overtime is a policy or legal classification applied after hours are calculated; its threshold can vary by employer and jurisdiction.
Practical example
A 9:00 AM–6:00 PM shift spans 9 hours. Subtracting a 1-hour unpaid break gives 8 worked hours before any overtime rule is applied.