Awaiting input
Fill in the fields and press Calculate. Your result appears here and stays in view as you scroll.
The guide
Understanding the Hours
Turn a start time, finish time and break into hours worked, with weekly totals and pay if you add a rate.
What each input means
The calculator asks for 5 pieces of information. Every field is validated before the maths runs, so an impossible value is refused rather than quietly producing a wrong answer.
| Input | What it asks for | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Start time | A clock time. | Today |
| Finish time | A finish time earlier than the start is treated as an overnight shift. | Today |
| Unpaid break | Minutes deducted from the shift. | 30 min |
| Days per week | Used for the weekly and yearly figures. | 5 |
| Hourly rate | Optional — add it to see pay, or leave blank for hours only. | Blank |
A worked example using the default inputs
With unpaid break of 30 min, days per week of 5, hourly rate of , the calculator returns 8h 00m 8.00 decimal hours.
| Result line | Value |
|---|---|
| Hours worked | 8h 00m 8.00 decimal hours |
| Paid time | 8.00 hours |
| Weekly hours | 40.00 hours over 5 days |
| Yearly hours (52 weeks) | 2,080 hours |
The same arithmetic runs whatever you type into the form above, so you can reproduce any figure by matching the inputs listed here.
How this is calculated
Hours = (finish − start, plus 24 hours if the shift crosses midnight − unpaid break) ÷ 60.
Working values are kept at full precision and rounded only for display. Impossible dates, zero denominators, negative amounts where they make no sense, and out-of-range values are rejected before any result is shown.
How dates and times are counted here
Date arithmetic is done on calendar dates, not on a count of milliseconds, so month lengths and leap days behave the way a wall calendar does. That single decision removes almost every off-by-one you see in spreadsheet date maths.
| Question | The rule | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
| How far apart two dates are | Count calendar days between them; state whether the end day is included | Date difference, age |
| Move a date forward or back | Step the day or month, then clamp to the target month length | Add or subtract days |
| How long a shift was | Finish − start − breaks, wrapping past midnight | Time duration, hours |
| What time is it elsewhere | Convert to UTC, then out through the IANA zone database | Time zone converter |
| How old someone is | Completed years, then months, then days | Age |
The inclusion convention is the usual source of disagreement. "One week from Monday" is the following Monday, which is seven days later but eight dates if you count both Mondays. Every tool states which convention it used in the result, so two answers that differ by one can both be right.
Daylight saving is not a fixed offset. Zones in the database carry their historical rule changes, which is why a meeting booked across a DST boundary can shift by an hour even though both cities look unchanged.
Three worked examples from this section
1 March to 31 March
Excluding the start date gives 30 days, which is the usual "days between" answer. Counting both ends, as a hotel or a project calendar would, gives 31. Neither is wrong; the convention is the whole difference.
A shift from 14:00 to 22:30 with a 30-minute break
The clock difference is 8 hours 30 minutes. Taking off the unpaid break leaves 8 hours exactly, which is 8.0 in decimal hours for payroll.
- Clock difference
- 8 h 30 m
- Less unpaid break
- 8 h 0 m
- Decimal hours for payroll
- 8.00
09:00 in Sydney, seen from London
During daylight saving Sydney runs at UTC+11. Nine in the morning there is 22:00 UTC the previous day, and London in winter is UTC+0, so the same moment reads as 22:00 on the day before. In July, when Sydney is UTC+10 and London is UTC+1, the gap narrows to nine hours.
How days, months and time zones are counted
Date arithmetic is performed on calendar dates rather than on elapsed milliseconds, so month and year lengths are handled correctly and leap days are respected. Where a difference is reported, the convention used (whether the end date is included) is stated in the result.
- Time zone conversions use the IANA time zone database, which carries each region's daylight saving rules and their historical changes.
- Adding months to the 31st can land on a shorter month; the standard convention is to move to that month's last day.
- Dates are interpreted in your device's local time zone unless the tool asks for a zone explicitly.
Sources and further reading
Reviewed 4 November 2026 · CalcFlow editorial
Common questions
Frequently asked
How do I read decimal hours?+
7.25 decimal hours is 7 hours 15 minutes, not 7 hours 25 minutes. Multiply the part after the decimal point by 60 to get the minutes.
Does a night shift work?+
Yes. Any finish time at or before the start time is read as the next day, so 22:00 to 06:00 counts as eight hours.
Keep going
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