Time card calculator

How to use the time card calculator

This free time card calculator adds up a week or two of clock-in and clock-out times, takes out the unpaid lunch, and shows total hours in both hours and minutes and decimal, with overtime and gross pay worked out for you. There is no sign-up, and your entries are kept in your own browser, so you can fill in each day as the week goes and come back to it.

1. Choose 1 week or 2 weeks and type your hourly rate.
2. For each day, enter the time you clocked in, the start and end of your lunch, and the time you clocked out. Leave the lunch fields empty on days you took no lunch.
3. Open Overtime, rounding and breaks to pick your state's overtime rule, the rounding your employer uses, an automatic unpaid break, and the day your workweek starts.
4. Read the totals at the bottom of the card: total hours, decimal hours, regular and overtime hours, and gross pay. Print the card or download a CSV to keep a copy.

Same shift every day? Fill in Monday and press Copy first day to weekdays, then change only the days that were different. Night shifts work too: an out time earlier than the in time is read as the next morning.

What the time card calculator works out

Adding up a timecard by hand goes wrong in a few predictable places. Minutes carry into hours in sixties, not hundreds. Twelve hour times switch at noon. Lunch has to come off each day. Overnight shifts end on a different date. Then the week has to be split at 40 hours for overtime. The calculator handles each of these on every keystroke:

• Daily totals in h:mm beside each day, so you can check them against the paper card.
• Weekly total in h:mm and decimal hours, the form payroll multiplies by your rate.
• Overtime split per workweek at one and a half times, with double time where the state rule requires it.
• Gross pay from the regular, overtime and double time hours.
• Rounding of each punch to the nearest 5, 6, 10 or 15 minutes if your time clock rounds, so you can see what the rounded card should total.

A time card calculator with lunch breaks

Most people searching for a time card calculator with lunch want one thing: the unpaid meal taken off each day without doing the subtraction. Enter the lunch out and lunch in times and the break is removed from that day only. If your employer deducts a fixed 30 minutes automatically instead of asking you to punch out, leave the lunch fields empty and set the automatic break in the settings; it applies only to days without lunch punches.

Only unpaid meal breaks come off your hours. Short rest breaks of about 5 to 20 minutes are paid time under federal rules, so do not enter them. The guide are lunch breaks paid explains where the line falls and which states require meal breaks.

Overtime by state on the time card

Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, overtime is owed for hours over 40 in a workweek, at one and a half times the regular rate. That is the default rule here. Four states add daily overtime, and the settings include each one: California (over 8 hours a day at 1.5x, over 12 at double time, plus the seventh consecutive day rule), Alaska (over 8), Nevada (over 8, for workers paid under one and a half times the state minimum wage) and Colorado (over 12). Hours paid as daily overtime are not counted again toward the weekly 40, so no hour is paid twice. See states with daily overtime for examples.

The workweek start day matters because overtime is counted per workweek, not per calendar week or pay period. Set it to match your employer and the weekly split will match payroll.

Time clock, timesheet and biweekly calculators

The same engine runs every calculator on the site, so they always agree with each other. Use whichever fits the job:

• The biweekly time card calculator for a two week pay period, with overtime worked out for each week separately.
• The timesheet calculator for a weekly timesheet with rounding and a record you can keep.
• The hours worked calculator for a single shift from a start time, end time and break.
• The overtime calculator when you already know your total hours and just need the time and a half pay.
• The minutes to decimal converter and chart for turning time clock minutes into payroll hours.

Whether your employer calls it a time clock calculator, a timesheet or a timecard, the arithmetic is the same: clock time in, decimal hours and pay out.

Checking your paycheck with a time card

Keep the week's actual punch times, enter them here, and compare three numbers with your pay stub: total hours, overtime hours and gross pay. If total hours differ, look for a missing punch, an automatic lunch deduction on a day you worked through lunch, or rounding. The rounding rules guide explains the 7 minute rule and when rounding is not neutral. If overtime differs, check that the workweek start day matches your employer's, and that bonuses and shift differentials were included in the overtime rate; the regular rate of pay guide shows how.

Employers must keep time cards for two years under federal recordkeeping rules, but your own copy is quicker to check. Print the card or download the CSV each pay period and keep it with the pay stub.

Limits of this calculator

The calculator gives the general federal and state rules for non-exempt hourly employees. It does not know about union contracts, alternative workweek schedules, industry-specific wage orders or exemptions, and it uses a single hourly rate. If your overtime rate should include a bonus or differential, work out the regular rate first and enter that. For a pay dispute, your state labor department or the U.S. Department of Labor can advise on your situation.