Hours Between Times Calculator
Calculate the exact hours and minutes between two times of day.
Perfect for tracking work hours, billing time, calculating shifts, or finding time differences.
Why Track Hours Precisely?
Accurate time tracking is essential for freelancers billing clients, employees documenting work hours, shift workers calculating pay, and anyone managing project budgets. Even a 15-minute discrepancy per day adds up to over 60 hours per year of unpaid (or over-billed) time.
How the Calculation Works
Both times are converted to total minutes from midnight. If the end time is earlier than the start time, the calculator adds 1,440 minutes (24 hours) to account for an overnight shift. Break time is then subtracted from the total.
Duration = (End time in minutes) - (Start time in minutes) ± 1440 (if overnight) - Break minutes
The result is expressed in hours:minutes format AND as a decimal (for billing calculations).
Quarter-Hour Rounding Practices
Many employers and billing systems round time to the nearest quarter hour (15 minutes). This is common in legal billing (0.25-hour increments), medical billing, and many corporate payroll systems. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) allows rounding if the practice is neutral over time — workers are not consistently disadvantaged.
Rounding chart: 1–7 minutes → round down. 8–14 minutes → round up to 15. 22 minutes → round down to 15. 23 minutes → round up to 30.
Freelancer Billing
When billing hourly as a freelancer, multiply your decimal hours by your hourly rate: Invoice amount = Decimal hours × Hourly rate
For example, 6 hours 45 minutes = 6.75 hours. At $85/hour: 6.75 × $85 = $573.75.
Always track start and end times for every session — invoicing from memory leads to undercharging.
Overtime Rules (US — FLSA)
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must receive overtime pay (1.5× regular rate) for hours worked over 40 per week. Some states (like California) also mandate daily overtime: 1.5× for hours over 8 per day, double time for over 12 per day.
24-Hour vs 12-Hour Clock
The international standard is the 24-hour clock (military time): midnight = 00:00, noon = 12:00, 11 PM = 23:00. The 12-hour clock (AM/PM) is common in the US, UK, Australia, and some other countries. This calculator uses the 12-hour format with AM/PM selectors for familiarity.
Remote Work and Time Zones
When collaborating across time zones, always convert to a common reference — typically UTC. A 9 AM EST meeting is 14:00 UTC. Many billing software tools automatically handle time zone conversion, but a simple hours calculator works for same-time-zone tracking.