Time to Decimal Calculator
A time to decimal calculator converts clock time into decimal hours: decimal = hours + minutes / 60 + seconds / 3600. For example, 7:45 is 7 + 45 / 60 = 7.75 hours. Payroll and invoicing forms ask for this format because an hourly rate multiplies a number, not a clock reading.
Common minute values
Timesheet: add or paste several entries
Add shifts one by one, or paste a whole week straight out of a spreadsheet column. H:MM, HH:MM:SS and plain decimals are all accepted.
29 CFR 785.48(b) allows 5-minute, tenth-of-an-hour and quarter-hour rounding, provided it does not underpay over time.
| Entry | Decimal hours | Rounded hours | Remove this entry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total |
Minutes to decimal hours chart (1 to 60 minutes)
Every minute of an hour as decimal hours, rounded to two places. 45 minutes = 0.75, 20 minutes = 0.33.
| Min | Decimal | Min | Decimal |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.02 | 31 | 0.52 |
| 2 | 0.03 | 32 | 0.53 |
| 3 | 0.05 | 33 | 0.55 |
| 4 | 0.07 | 34 | 0.57 |
| 5 | 0.08 | 35 | 0.58 |
| 6 | 0.10 | 36 | 0.60 |
| 7 | 0.12 | 37 | 0.62 |
| 8 | 0.13 | 38 | 0.63 |
| 9 | 0.15 | 39 | 0.65 |
| 10 | 0.17 | 40 | 0.67 |
| 11 | 0.18 | 41 | 0.68 |
| 12 | 0.20 | 42 | 0.70 |
| 13 | 0.22 | 43 | 0.72 |
| 14 | 0.23 | 44 | 0.73 |
| 15 | 0.25 | 45 | 0.75 |
| 16 | 0.27 | 46 | 0.77 |
| 17 | 0.28 | 47 | 0.78 |
| 18 | 0.30 | 48 | 0.80 |
| 19 | 0.32 | 49 | 0.82 |
| 20 | 0.33 | 50 | 0.83 |
| 21 | 0.35 | 51 | 0.85 |
| 22 | 0.37 | 52 | 0.87 |
| 23 | 0.38 | 53 | 0.88 |
| 24 | 0.40 | 54 | 0.90 |
| 25 | 0.42 | 55 | 0.92 |
| 26 | 0.43 | 56 | 0.93 |
| 27 | 0.45 | 57 | 0.95 |
| 28 | 0.47 | 58 | 0.97 |
| 29 | 0.48 | 59 | 0.98 |
| 30 | 0.50 | 60 | 1.00 |
How do you convert time to decimal hours?
Divide the minutes by 60 and the seconds by 3,600, then add them to the whole hours: decimal hours = h + m / 60 + s / 3600. There is no separate payroll rule; it is the same arithmetic everywhere. Two worked examples: 8:20 is 8 + 20 / 60 = 8.33 hours, and 2:07:30 is 2 + 7 / 60 + 30 / 3600 = 2.125, shown as 2.13 on a two-decimal timesheet.
What is 7:45 in decimal hours?
7:45 is 7.75 decimal hours, because 45 / 60 = 0.75. At $22 an hour that shift pays 7.75 x 22 = $170.50, while typing 7.45 by mistake would pay $163.90 - a $6.60 error on a single day, or $33.00 over a five-day week. The same shift is 465 total minutes and 465.00 decimal minutes.
How do you convert decimal hours back to hours and minutes?
Keep the whole number as hours and multiply what is left by 60. So 3.4 hours is 3 hours plus 0.4 x 60 = 24 minutes, which is 3:24 - not 3:40. If a remainder is still left, multiply it by 60 again for seconds: 2.125 hours is 2:07:30. The Decimal to Time tab above does both steps and writes the answer out in words so the reading is unambiguous.
How do you convert time to decimal in Excel or Google Sheets?
Both store a time as a fraction of a day, so 7:45 is really 0.322916... internally. Multiply by 24 to get decimal hours with =A1*24, then format that cell as Number rather than Time, or the sheet will display 7:45 again. For decimal minutes use =A1*1440. Going back, =B1/24 formatted as [h]:mm returns clock time, and the square brackets let a total run past 24 hours instead of wrapping to zero.
How does payroll rounding to the nearest quarter hour work?
Quarter-hour rounding snaps each punch to :00, :15, :30 or :45, which is where the seven-minute rule comes from: a punch at 8:07 rounds down to 8:00, one at 8:08 rounds up to 8:15. US regulation 29 CFR 785.48(b) also accepts rounding to the nearest 5 minutes or nearest tenth of an hour, provided the practice averages out and never systematically underpays. Use the rounding selector in the timesheet panel to compare all three rounding rules against the exact total before you submit the sheet.
Is decimal time the same as decimal hours?
No. Decimal hours keep the ordinary 60-minute hour and only change how the fraction is written, which is why 7:45 becomes 7.75. Decimal time was a different idea altogether: the French Republican day of 10 hours of 100 minutes, made compulsory in 1794 and dropped in 1795 because every clock, timetable and contract already ran on the sexagesimal system. The SI second is still defined without any decimal day, so timesheets convert hours rather than replace them.
Sources and further reading
- eCFR - 29 CFR 785.48, rounding practices for recorded working time (US Department of Labor)
- Microsoft Excel documentation, TIME function - a time is stored as a decimal number, and 12:00 PM is 0.5 because it is half of a day
- Microsoft Excel - Format numbers as dates or times: time format codes, including elapsed time in square brackets ([h]:mm)
- BIPM - definition of the second, the SI base unit of time
- NIST Time and Frequency Division - how civil time is realised and distributed
About Time to Decimal Calculator
This time to decimal calculator turns clock time into the decimal hours that payroll software, invoicing tools and spreadsheets actually accept. Enter 7 hours and 45 minutes and it returns 7.75 decimal hours, 465.00 decimal minutes and 465 total minutes at once, so you can copy whichever number the form in front of you asks for. The second tab does the opposite: type 3.4 and it returns 3:24:00 with a written breakdown, which is how you catch the classic mistake of reading 3.4 as three hours and forty minutes.
The arithmetic is trivial - minutes divided by 60, seconds divided by 3,600 - but timesheets are where it goes wrong. Thirds of an hour never terminate: 20 minutes is 0.3333..., and writing it as 0.33 loses 12 seconds every time. Fifteen such entries total 4.95 hours instead of 5.00. This page adds the exact values and rounds once at the end, which is why its running total can sit a cent above a column of pre-rounded numbers.
The timesheet panel is the part a conversion chart cannot give you. Add shifts one at a time as 8:17, 7:45 or 1.25, or paste a whole week out of a spreadsheet column and convert every line in one click. A rounding selector offers the three rounding practices 29 CFR 785.48(b) names - nearest 5 minutes, nearest tenth of an hour and nearest quarter hour - plus an exact setting that rounds nothing, and applies the choice to every row and to the total, so you can see precisely what a quarter-hour policy adds or removes before anyone signs the sheet. When the list looks right, download it as a CSV or copy it as a tab-separated table that pastes straight into Excel, Google Sheets or a payroll import template.
Below the calculator sits a full 1-to-60-minute conversion chart, the Excel and Google Sheets formulas that do the same job, and worked answers for the values people look up most often: 7:45, 8:20, 10 minutes and 30 minutes. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded.
Use Cases
How to use
On the Time to Decimal tab, type the shift into the Hours, Minutes and Seconds boxes - 7, 45, 0 for a 7:45 shift.
Read Decimal Hours on the coloured card (7.75), with Decimal Minutes (465.00) and Total Minutes (465) underneath it.
Switch to Decimal to Time and enter a figure such as 3.4 to convert it back to 3:24:00 with a written hours, minutes and seconds breakdown.
In the timesheet panel, add each shift as 8:17 or 8.28, or paste a whole week into the bulk box and press Add all lines.
Choose a payroll rounding rule - exact, 5 minutes, a tenth of an hour or a quarter hour - and watch every row and the total change with it.
Press Download CSV for a spreadsheet file, or Copy as table to paste the entries and totals straight into Excel, Google Sheets or a payroll form.
Pro Tips
- Decimal hours are not minutes with a dot. 7.30 means 7 hours 18 minutes; if you mean seven and a half hours, type 7:30 in the entry box or 7.5 in the decimal field.
- Keep two decimal places for payroll. One place is a tenth of an hour, which is 6 minutes; two places resolve 36 seconds, and a third place is worth 3.6 seconds that most import templates truncate anyway.
- Twenty-minute blocks never divide cleanly: 0.33 each, but three of them are exactly 1.00 hour. Let the entry list add the unrounded values instead of summing rounded figures by hand.
- Switch the rounding selector between Exact and Nearest quarter hour before you submit a sheet - the gap between the two totals is the time your rounding policy is adding or removing.
- Paste a whole spreadsheet column into the bulk box, then use Download CSV. The file already has Entry, Decimal hours and Rounded hours columns plus a total row, so no retyping is needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ten minutes is 0.17 decimal hours, since 10 / 60 = 0.1666... rounded to two places. A workplace that bills in tenths of an hour records it as 0.2 instead, because 10 minutes rounds up to the nearest 6-minute tenth. Ten minutes a day across a five-day week is 50 minutes, which this page reports as 0.83 hours, not the 0.85 you get by adding 0.17 five times.
Thirty minutes is exactly 0.5 decimal hours - one of the few values with no rounding error at all, since 30 / 60 = 0.5. An eight-hour shift with a 30-minute unpaid lunch is entered as 7:30 and returns 7.50 hours. Watch the notation: 7.30 typed as a decimal means 7 hours 18 minutes, which is 12 minutes short.
Because rounding happens once per row when you do it manually. Three 20-minute breaks written as 0.33 + 0.33 + 0.33 come to 0.99, while the true total is 1.00 hour. This calculator sums the unrounded values and rounds only the final figure, so it reports 1.00. Gaps of 0.01 to 0.03 hours across a week are normal: that is 36 seconds at one end and a little under two minutes at the other.
Yes. Open the timesheet panel, paste one entry per line - 8:15, 7:45, 9:02, 6.5 - and press Add all lines. Formats can be mixed freely: H:MM, HH:MM:SS and plain decimal hours are all parsed. Every row shows its decimal value and its rounded value, and the running total updates as you add or delete lines.
Download CSV writes a file with Entry, Decimal hours and Rounded hours columns plus a total row, and it opens directly in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. Copy as table puts the same grid on the clipboard as tab-separated text, so one paste fills three columns of a spreadsheet or a payroll import template without any retyping.
In the United States, 29 CFR 785.48(b) accepts rounding recorded time to the nearest 5 minutes, tenth of an hour or quarter hour, as long as the practice averages out and does not fail to compensate employees over time. Rounding that always favours the employer is not permitted. Compare the exact and rounded totals here before submitting a sheet.
Two. One place is a 6-minute tenth of an hour, the standard in legal and accounting billing. Two places resolve 36 seconds and match what ADP, Gusto, QuickBooks Time and most import templates store. A third decimal is worth just 3.6 seconds and is usually truncated on import, so it adds precision nobody keeps.
Yes. The Hours field is not capped, so 30 hours 15 minutes returns 30.25 decimal hours and 1,815 total minutes. Only minutes and seconds are limited to 59, because 60 minutes rolls into the next hour. For an overnight shift, enter the elapsed duration rather than clock times: 22:30 to 06:15 is 7:45, or 7.75 hours.
Decimal hours divide by 60 once, so 1:30 is 1.50 hours. Decimal minutes divide only at the seconds level, so the same 1:30 is 90.00 minutes. Payroll and invoicing want decimal hours; call-centre, logistics and manufacturing systems often log decimal minutes. This page shows both, plus whole-number total minutes, so you can copy whichever the form expects.
No. Every conversion, the running total, the CSV file and the clipboard copy are produced by JavaScript running in your browser, and nothing is posted anywhere. The entry list lives only in the open page and disappears when you reload or close the tab, so download the CSV first if you need to keep the week.