If you start work at 9:00 and finish at 17:30, how many hours did you actually work? It sounds simple, but the lunch break makes the math fiddly, and doing it every day for a week gets old fast. The Work Hours Calculator does the subtraction for you in seconds.
Enter your start time, your end time, and your lunch break in minutes. The tool gives you the total work hours for that shift. It is free, needs no sign-up, and runs in your browser.
How to calculate your work hours
- Enter the time your shift started, for example 9:00.
- Enter the time your shift ended, for example 17:30.
- Enter your lunch or unpaid break in minutes, for example 30.
- The tool shows your total work hours for that shift.
The tool computes hours only. It does not apply pay rates or overtime multipliers — multiply the hours by your own rate to get pay.
A worked example, with the numbers
Take a normal Monday-to-Friday week: you work 9:00 to 17:30 each day, with a 30-minute lunch. 17:30 minus 9:00 is 8.5 hours. Minus 0.5 hours for lunch gives 8 hours per day.
Five days at 8 hours a day equals 40 hours for the week. Run the tool once with 9:00, 17:30, and a 30-minute break, and it shows 8 hours — multiply by five yourself, or note it down each day.
Now add a Saturday shift, 9:00 to 13:00 with no lunch. The tool gives 4 hours. Add that to the 40 from the week, and your total is 44 hours. For a week, run the tool once per day and add the results together.
When you need a work hours calculator
- Freelancers logging billable hours per client. Enter the day’s shift times and record the hours against each client.
- Hourly workers filling in timesheets. Get an exact daily total before typing it into your company’s timesheet.
- Managers double-checking a team’s weekly totals. Recompute a reported figure quickly to confirm it is right.
- Part-time workers tracking shifts across the week. Run it per shift, add the results, and you have the full week’s hours.
- Anyone checking pay against hours worked. Convert the shift into clean hour totals, then multiply by your own hourly rate.
Limitations worth knowing
- One shift per calculation. For a week of work, run the tool once per day and add the results together yourself.
- Hours only: it does not apply pay rates or overtime multipliers. Multiply the hours by your own rate to get pay.
- It assumes the shift starts and ends on the same day, so overnight shifts like 22:00 to 06:00 do not compute correctly.
- Breaks other than the single lunch field are not covered. If you took two separate breaks, subtract them yourself before entering the lunch field.
Work Hours – frequently asked questions
How do I calculate hours between two times?
Enter the start time and the end time in the tool, and it subtracts them for you. For example, 9:00 to 17:30 gives 8.5 hours.
How do I include an unpaid lunch break?
Enter the break in the lunch field in minutes, for example 30 for a half-hour lunch. The tool subtracts it from the shift total.
Can it calculate a whole week’s hours?
Yes, but one day at a time. Run the tool once per day and add the results together to get the weekly total.
Does it calculate overtime pay?
No. It gives you the hours only. Apply your own overtime rate or multiplier to those hours to work out pay.
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Further reading: Working time on Wikipedia
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