Hours · guide

How to calculate hours worked, with lunch breaks and minutes to decimal

To count the hours you worked, take the time from start to finish, subtract an unpaid meal break, and turn the minutes into decimal hours the way payroll writes them. This guide shows which breaks count as work under federal law, how to do the math, and where rounding comes in.

What counts as hours worked

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the workweek ordinarily includes all the time you are required to be on the employer’s premises, on duty or at a prescribed workplace (DOL Fact Sheet #22).

Work your employer did not ask for but suffered or permitted you to do is work time it must pay for: finishing a task after your shift, or answering work messages, counts (Fact Sheet #22).

Sources: U.S. Department of Labor, Fact Sheet #22: Hours Worked Under the FLSA

Short breaks are paid; a real meal break usually is not

Rest periods of short duration, running from 5 minutes to about 20 minutes, are customarily paid for as working time and must be counted as hours worked (29 CFR 785.18). A coffee or snack break is one of these rest periods, not a meal period (29 CFR 785.19).

A bona fide meal period is not work time. Ordinarily it lasts 30 minutes or more, and you must be completely relieved from duty: if you have to eat at your desk or stay at your machine, you are working while you eat (29 CFR 785.19). Your employer does not have to let you leave the premises for it to count as a meal period, as long as you are otherwise free of duties.

So subtract only the unpaid meal period. Two paid 15-minute breaks stay in your hours.

Sources: 29 CFR 785.18, Rest (eCFR); 29 CFR 785.19, Meal (eCFR); U.S. Department of Labor, Fact Sheet #22: Hours Worked Under the FLSA

Step by step

Write your start and end times on one clock (8:00 am and 4:30 pm, or 8:00 and 16:30). Subtract the start from the end; if the end is earlier than the start, the shift crossed midnight, so add 24 hours. Then subtract your unpaid meal period in minutes.

What is left is your hours worked in hours and minutes. For a time card or a paycheck, turn the minutes into a decimal, as the next section shows. The hours calculator does all three steps for you.

Sources: U.S. Department of Labor, Fact Sheet #22: Hours Worked Under the FLSA; 29 CFR 785.19, Meal (eCFR)

Minutes to decimal hours

Payroll writes hours as decimals: divide the minutes by 60. 15 minutes is 0.25 hours, 45 minutes is 0.75, 6 minutes (a tenth of an hour) is 0.10, and 25 minutes is 0.42, rounded to two places. So 8 hours 25 minutes is 8.42 hours.

Do not read the minutes as the decimal: 8.25 hours is 8 h 15 min, not 8 hours 25 minutes, because 0.25 of an hour is 15 minutes. Mixing them up costs you 10 minutes on that day.

Some time clocks record your start and stop times to the nearest 5 minutes, or the nearest tenth or quarter of an hour. Federal enforcement accepts that only if, over time, it does not fail to pay you for all the time you actually worked (29 CFR 785.48).

Sources: 29 CFR 785.48, Use of time clocks (eCFR)

Worked examples

A day with lunch: 8:00 am to 4:30 pm is 8.50 hours from start to end. Less a 30-minute unpaid lunch, you worked 8 h 0 min, or 8.00 hours.

Odd minutes: 8:10 am to 5:05 pm is 8.92 hours from start to end. Less a 30-minute lunch, you worked 8 h 25 min, or 8.42 hours.

A night shift: 10:00 pm to 6:15 am crosses midnight, 8.25 hours from start to end. Less a 30-minute meal break, you worked 7 h 45 min, or 7.75 hours.

These figures come from the hours calculator and the minutes to decimal hours converter; enter your own times there to see your day.

Sources: 29 CFR 785.18, Rest (eCFR); 29 CFR 785.19, Meal (eCFR)

Check your state

These are the federal rules on which breaks count as hours worked. Some states also require employers to give a meal period or rest breaks, with their own lengths and timing.

The U.S. Department of Labor keeps a table of the meal periods each state requires; check your state there, and with its labor department.

Sources: U.S. Department of Labor, Minimum Length of Meal Period Required under State Law (table by state); U.S. Department of Labor, Fact Sheet #22: Hours Worked Under the FLSA

A guide to what these rules and agencies publish, not legal advice. For your own case, check your state’s labor department. Checked against the eCFR and Department of Labor pages on November 5, 2026.

Open the hours calculator Convert minutes to decimal hours Add up a whole week on the time card