Hours Calculator
Calculate work hours and overtime pay
Hours Calculator tool
Time Entries
Hours Calculator: key facts
- What it does
- Calculate work hours and overtime pay
- Category
- Other Calculators
- Cost
- Free, with no account, sign-up, or install.
- Your data
- Runs entirely in your browser — the files and text you enter are never uploaded to a server.
- Last reviewed
- . Report an incorrect result.
What the Hours Calculator does
Working out a timesheet by hand — start time, end time, minus the lunch break, across several days — is exactly the kind of arithmetic that invites mistakes. This calculator adds it all up: enter each day's start and end times and break, and it totals your hours, splits them into regular and overtime, and can even compute your pay.
Hourly workers use it to check a paycheck, freelancers to total billable time, and managers to tally a team member's week. It handles overnight shifts where the end time is earlier than the start, deducts break minutes per day, and applies a 1.5× rate to hours over your overtime threshold when you enter an hourly rate.
Using the Hours Calculator, step by step
- Add a row for each day, entering its start time, end time, and break in minutes.
- Set your weekly overtime threshold (40 hours by default).
- Optionally enter your hourly rate to calculate pay.
- Read the total, regular, and overtime hours, plus regular, overtime, and total pay if a rate was given.
Per day, then totalled, then split at the threshold
Each row is calculated independently: the start time is subtracted from the end time in minutes, the unpaid break is deducted, and the result converted to decimal hours. Those daily figures are then summed for the week, which is what the overtime threshold is applied to.
Working in minutes and converting at the end avoids the sixty-not-a-hundred trap, and decimal hours are what payroll systems expect. The default 40-hour threshold splits the week into regular and overtime portions, and an optional hourly rate turns the split into pay.
Breaks are entered per day rather than assumed, because whether a break is paid varies by employer and jurisdiction. Enter unpaid breaks only — deducting a paid break understates your hours.
- A 09:00 to 17:00 day with a 30-minute unpaid break is 7.5 hours.
- Five such days total 37.5 hours — under the 40-hour threshold, so no overtime.
- Adding a sixth day of the same length brings the week to 45 hours: 40 regular and 5 overtime.
What makes this one worth using
- It tracks multiple days at once and sums the week, rather than making you total each day separately.
- It detects overnight shifts (end time before start) and adds the wraparound automatically, and deducts each day's break.
- It splits hours into regular and overtime at your threshold and applies a 1.5× overtime pay multiplier when you add a rate.
- All calculations run in your browser, so your work and pay details stay private.
Overtime rules vary more than the arithmetic suggests
The 40-hour default reflects the US federal standard under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires time-and-a-half beyond 40 hours in a week for covered employees. It is not universal. Some jurisdictions calculate overtime daily rather than weekly — California uses a daily threshold of 8 hours and a higher multiplier past 12 — and many countries set weekly limits below 40. The threshold field exists because no single number is correct everywhere.
Exempt and non-exempt status determines whether overtime applies at all, and misclassification is common. Salaried does not automatically mean exempt: the test turns on duties and a salary threshold, not on how someone is paid.
Several real payroll practices are outside this calculation: shift differentials, weekend or holiday premiums, on-call time, travel time between sites, and rounding rules applied to clock-in times. Break entitlements are also legally mandated in many places rather than optional. Keep your own record of hours worked, since it is the most useful thing to have if a payslip is ever disputed — and for a genuine dispute, your local labour authority rather than a calculator is the place to go.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does it handle an overnight shift?
If the end time is earlier than the start time — say a shift from 22:00 to 06:00 — the calculator recognizes it crosses midnight and adds 24 hours so the duration comes out correctly rather than negative.
How is overtime calculated?
Hours up to your weekly threshold (40 by default) count as regular; anything above counts as overtime. If you enter an hourly rate, overtime is paid at 1.5 times that rate, which is a common standard, while regular hours are paid at the base rate.
Are breaks subtracted from my hours?
Yes. The break minutes you enter for each day are deducted from that day's worked time, so an 8-hour shift with a 30-minute unpaid break counts as 7.5 hours.
Does it calculate pay automatically?
Only if you enter an hourly rate. Leave it blank and the calculator just totals your hours; add a rate and it works out regular pay, overtime pay at 1.5×, and the combined total.
