Time Card Calculator
| Day | Start | End | Break | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | 7.50 | |||
| Tue | 7.50 | |||
| Wed | 7.50 | |||
| Thu | 7.50 | |||
| Fri | 7.50 | |||
| Sat | — | |||
| Sun | — |
Week total
$750.00
- Total hours37.50 (37h 30m)
- Regular37.50 h · $750.00
- Overtime0.00 h · $0.00
An end time earlier than the start is treated as an overnight shift. Overtime rules vary by state and country, and the one selected here is the federal weekly rule — check what applies where you work. Gross pay only: nothing is withheld for tax, and unpaid breaks are the minutes you enter rather than any statutory minimum.
The worked examples below are in US dollars. The tool itself works in whichever currency you pick above, and never converts between them — what you type is what it does the arithmetic on.
Who needs a weekly time card worked out
Anyone paid by the hour and anyone who signs off on hours: shift workers checking a payslip, small-business owners running payroll without software, contractors billing a client by the week, and managers approving a paper time sheet. The arithmetic is easy in principle and error-prone in practice, because clock times are base 60, payroll wants base 10, and overtime is decided by rules that differ between one state and the next.
The week is what makes this the right tool rather than the hours between two times calculator, which is the single-shift version of the same arithmetic. Overtime cannot be settled a shift at a time, so anything with a threshold in it belongs here.
A worked week at $20 an hour
Take a week of 08:00 starts with a 30-minute unpaid lunch.
| Day | Start | End | Unpaid break | Decimal hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 08:00 | 16:30 | 30 min | 8.00 |
| Tuesday | 08:00 | 18:00 | 30 min | 9.50 |
| Wednesday | 08:00 | 16:30 | 30 min | 8.00 |
| Thursday | 08:00 | 17:00 | 30 min | 8.50 |
| Friday | 08:00 | 16:30 | 30 min | 8.00 |
| Week | 42.00 |
Under the "over 40 hours a week" rule, 40 hours are regular and 2 are overtime: $800.00 plus $60.00 at time and a half, for $860.00 gross. Under the "over 8 a day, or 40 a week" rule you get the same $860.00, but by a different route — Tuesday contributes 1.5 daily overtime hours and Thursday 0.5, which is the same 2 hours.
The two rules part company on a compressed schedule. Four 10-hour days is exactly 40 hours: the weekly rule finds no overtime at all and pays $800.00, while the daily rule finds 2 overtime hours on each of the four days — 8 hours in total — and pays 32 × $20 + 8 × $30 = $880.00. Same hours worked, $80 apart.
How the hours are counted
Each shift is measured in whole minutes: end time minus start time, minus the unpaid break, then divided by 60 to give decimal hours. An end time earlier than the start is read as an overnight shift rather than a negative day, so 22:00 to 06:30 with a 30-minute break is 480 minutes, or 8.00 hours, not minus 16.
Which overtime rule applies to you
The two rules are not preferences; they are jurisdictions.
- The US federal FLSA standard is weekly: over 40 hours in a workweek, at not less than one and a half times the regular rate. Daily hours do not trigger it.
- California, Alaska, Nevada and Colorado, among others, add a daily threshold — generally over 8 hours in a day — and California adds double time past 12 hours in a day, which this tool does not model.
- Salaried and genuinely exempt employees are usually outside overtime rules altogether, whichever state they are in.
Assumptions and limits
Everything here is gross pay. Tax, national insurance, benefits and garnishments are not modelled, so the figure is the top line of a payslip and never the amount that lands. Breaks are treated as unpaid whenever you enter them; paid rest breaks should simply be left out of the break box. Shift differentials, premium rates for weekends or public holidays, on-call time and tipped-wage credits are all outside what a time card can express.
Decimal pay, lunch breaks and night shifts
Why is 7 hours 30 minutes shown as 7.50 and not 7.30?
Because payroll runs on decimal hours. Thirty minutes is half an hour, so it is 0.50, not 0.30. Getting this wrong understates a half-hour shift by twelve minutes of pay every time, which is why the tool shows decimal hours, hours-and-minutes and total minutes side by side.
Should the lunch break come out of the hours?
If it is unpaid, yes — enter it in the break column and it is deducted. Short paid rest breaks stay in the shift and should not be entered. Under the FLSA, breaks under about 20 minutes are generally compensable and a bona fide meal period of 30 minutes or more generally is not.
How is an overnight shift handled?
An end time before the start time is treated as crossing midnight, so 22:00 to 06:30 counts as 8.5 hours before breaks. Which day the hours belong to for the overtime threshold is your employer’s policy; the tool credits them to the row you typed them in.
Last reviewed 27 August 2026