Introduction
The Weekly Hours Calculator adds up your work hours for the whole week. Type a start time and an end time for each day, take out your break, and the total updates as you type. You get the answer in hours and minutes (like 42:30) and in decimal hours (like 42.50), which is what most payroll systems want.
You can set it up to match your job. Pick a 12-hour or 24-hour clock, choose the day your week starts, and round times to 5, 6, or 15 minutes. Breaks can be typed in minutes, entered as clock-out and clock-in times, or taken out for you on long days.
The calculator also splits regular hours from overtime. Choose daily overtime, weekly overtime, both, California rules with double-time, or the 8/80 rule used in healthcare. You can mark PTO days too, and those hours stay out of the overtime math.
When you are done, you get a weekly summary, a day-by-day table, a step-by-step solution that shows the math, and a simple chart. Copy the summary to your clipboard, or print a timecard for your boss or your own records.
How to use our Weekly Hours Calculator
Enter your start time, end time, and break for each day of the week. The calculator adds up your total work hours, regular hours, overtime hours, and PTO hours, and shows them in hours:minutes and in decimal form.
Clock Format: Pick 12-hour (9:00 AM) or 24-hour (09:00) time.
Time Input Style: Pick one box for each time, or separate boxes for hours and minutes.
Week Starts On: Choose the first day of your work week, like Monday or Sunday.
Time Rounding: Choose how to round clock times. Pick 15-minute, 6-minute, 5-minute, or no rounding.
Break Deduction: Choose to type breaks yourself, skip breaks, or auto-deduct the same break each day.
Break Entry Format: Type breaks as minutes (like 30) or as break out and break in times.
Minutes to Deduct: If you picked auto-deduct, type how many break minutes to take off each day.
Min. Hours to Trigger: Set how many hours a day must reach before the auto break is taken off.
Overtime Rule: Choose no overtime, daily, weekly, both, California rules, or the 8/80 healthcare rule.
Daily OT Threshold: Type the hours you can work in one day before overtime starts, like 8.
Weekly OT Threshold: Type the hours you can work in one week before overtime starts, like 40.
OT Rate Multiplier: Type your overtime rate, like 1.5. This is only a label and does not figure pay.
Show dates beside day names: Turn this on to show real dates. Then pick your week start date and date format (m/d or d/m).
Track PTO days: Turn this on to add a PTO box to each day. PTO hours are counted but left out of overtime.
Enter key moves to next field: Turn this on to jump to the next box when you press Enter.
Show print header fields: Turn this on to add an employee name and ID to your printed timecard.
Start and End times: For each day, type when you clocked in and out. You can type 915 for 9:15 or 1730 for 5:30 PM.
Break: For each day, type your break minutes or your break out and in times.
Calculate, Clear All, Copy Summary, and Print: Totals update as you type, but you can press Calculate any time. Clear All empties the grid, Copy Summary copies your results, and Print Timecard prints the week.
Weekly Work Hours Explained
Weekly hours are the total time you work in one week. You find them by adding up each day's hours, then taking out unpaid break time. For federal overtime, a workweek is a fixed, repeating period of seven 24-hour days.1 Payroll uses this total to figure out your pay, your overtime, and your time-off records.
Hours and Minutes vs. Decimal Hours
Clocks use hours and minutes, like 7:30. Payroll systems use decimal hours, like 7.50. To change minutes into decimals, divide the minutes by 60. So 30 minutes is 0.50 hours, 15 minutes is 0.25 hours, and 45 minutes is 0.75 hours. Both numbers mean the same amount of time, just written in a different way.
Breaks and Meal Time
Unpaid breaks, like a 30-minute lunch, do not count as work time. If you clock in at 9:00 AM and out at 5:30 PM, that is 8.5 hours on the clock. Take away a 30-minute lunch and you worked 8 hours. Short rest breaks, usually 20 minutes or less, are paid and stay in the total.2 Many workplaces take out the same lunch time each day once you work past a set number of hours.
Overtime Rules
Under U.S. federal law, covered workers who are not exempt earn overtime after 40 hours in a workweek, at least time and one-half their regular rate.1 This is often called "time and a half." Some states add daily rules. California pays time and a half after eight hours in a workday, double time after 12 hours in a day, and extra pay on the seventh day of work in a workweek.3 Hospitals and residential care homes may use the 8/80 rule, which pays overtime after 8 hours in a day and after 80 hours in a 14-day period.4
Time Rounding
Some employers round punches to set blocks of time. A common one is 15-minute rounding with the 7-minute rule: punches within 7 minutes round back, and 8 minutes or more round up. So 8:07 becomes 8:00, and 8:08 becomes 8:15. Other shops use 5-minute or 6-minute blocks. Six minutes equals one tenth of an hour, which makes decimals simple. Federal rules accept rounding to the nearest 5 minutes, or to the nearest tenth or quarter of an hour, only if over time it does not leave workers unpaid for time they actually worked.5
Paid Time Off
PTO, sick days, and holiday pay give you hours in your paycheck, but you did not work them. Because pay for vacation, sick days and holidays is not pay for hours worked, those hours do not count toward overtime.6 Keeping PTO in its own column shows the true number of hours worked.
Why Tracking Weekly Hours Matters
Good records help you spot missing punches, catch unpaid overtime, and check that your paycheck is right. Hourly workers, part-time staff, freelancers, and contractors all use weekly hour totals for billing and payroll. Keep your own copy of start times, end times, and breaks so you can compare it to your pay stub.