Time Card Calculator
Total daily in-out punches, unpaid meal breaks, punch rounding, and 40-hour FLSA overtime. Across the default 46.00 hours at $12.00 an hour, gross pay is $588.00.
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Weekly hours, overtime split, and gross pay
Total hours worked
46.00 h
Gross pay for the week
$588.00
Across 6 worked days with 0 min of unpaid breaks, net time is 46 h (46.00 hours). Gross pay at $12.00 an hour is $588.00.
Hours pass the 40-hour mark in 29 U.S.C. 207(a)(1) on Day 5: 40.00 regular hours pay $480.00 and 6.00 overtime hours at $18.00 pay $108.00.
Under 29 CFR 516.2(a)(8)–(9), $588.00 splits into $552.00 straight time on 46.00 hours plus $36.00 half-time excess.
Repeating this week pays $1,176.00 every two weeks or $30,576.00 across 52 weeks.
Daily clock punches, breaks, rounding, and rate
- Clock time (6 worked days) = 2,760 min (46 h)
- Net time = 2,760 min − 0 min = 2,760 min (46.00 h)
- 40-hour split = 2,400 regular min (40.00 h) + 360 overtime min (6.00 h)
- Regular pay = $12.00 × 2,400 ÷ 60 = $480.00
- Overtime pay = 1.5 × $12.00 × 360 ÷ 60 = $108.00
- Weekly gross pay = $480.00 + $108.00 = $588.00
Daily regular and overtime hours across worked days
Weekly gross pay by daily unpaid break deduction
Daily punches, unpaid breaks, and running overtime split
| Day | Clock punches | Break (min) | Net time | Regular (h) | Overtime (h) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | 7:00–12:00, 12:30–16:30 | 0 | 9 h | 9.00 | 0.00 |
| Day 2 | 7:00–12:00, 12:30–16:30 | 0 | 9 h | 9.00 | 0.00 |
| Day 3 | 7:00–12:00, 12:30–16:30 | 0 | 9 h | 9.00 | 0.00 |
| Day 4 | 7:00–12:00, 12:30–16:30 | 0 | 9 h | 9.00 | 0.00 |
| Day 5 | 7:00–12:00, 12:30–16:30 | 0 | 9 h | 4.00 | 5.00 |
| Day 6 | 8:00–9:00 | 0 | 1 h | 0.00 | 1.00 |
Daily net time spans 1 h (Day 6) to 9 h (Days 1–5), totaling 46 h (46.00 hours).
Your punches across all four 29 CFR 785.48(b) recording options
| Recording option | Net time | Hours | Vs. exact | Overtime (h) | Gross pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exact minutes (no rounding) | 46 h | 46.00 | 0 min | 6.00 | $588.00 |
| Nearest 5 minutes | 46 h | 46.00 | 0 min | 6.00 | $588.00 |
| Nearest 6 minutes (0.1 h) | 46 h | 46.00 | 0 min | 6.00 | $588.00 |
| Nearest 15 minutes (0.25 h) | 46 h | 46.00 | 0 min | 6.00 | $588.00 |
Every entered punch lands on a :00 or :30 mark, so exact, 5-minute, 6-minute, and 15-minute recording under 29 CFR 785.48(b) all give 46 h ($588.00).
How daily unpaid meal deductions change weekly overtime and gross pay
| Unpaid break / day | Weekly break (min) | Net hours | Regular (h) | Overtime (h) | Gross pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 min/day | 0 | 46.00 | 40.00 | 6.00 | $588.00 |
| 15 min/day | 90 | 44.50 | 40.00 | 4.50 | $561.00 |
| 20 min/day | 120 | 44.00 | 40.00 | 4.00 | $552.00 |
| 30 min/day | 180 | 43.00 | 40.00 | 3.00 | $534.00 |
| 45 min/day | 270 | 41.50 | 40.00 | 1.50 | $507.00 |
| 60 min/day | 360 | 40.00 | 40.00 | 0.00 | $480.00 |
Going from 0 min/day to 60 min/day of unpaid meal time (29 CFR 785.19) crosses the 40-hour mark in 29 U.S.C. 207(a)(1), trimming overtime from 6.00 hours to 0.00 hours and cutting gross pay by $108.00 ($588.00 vs. $480.00).
How daily clock punches, breaks, rounding, and FLSA overtime work
Each day's worked time adds your in-out pairs and subtracts any unpaid meal break you enter. You can enter up to three pairs on one day for a punched lunch or a split shift. When clock-out is earlier on the clock than clock-in, the shift crosses midnight and adds 24 hours (a daylight saving clock change is not modeled; see the assumptions). A shift from 22:00 to 6:30 runs 8 h 30 min, or 8 h after a 30-minute meal break. To sum raw durations without clock stamps, open the time duration calculator.
Type into the unpaid break box only meals you did not already punch out for. Under 29 CFR 785.18, “Rest periods of short duration, running from 5 minutes to about 20 minutes, are common in industry.” That section adds: “They must be counted as hours worked.” Under 29 CFR 785.19(a), “Bona fide meal periods are not worktime.” It adds: “The employee must be completely relieved from duty for the purposes of eating regular meals. Ordinarily 30 minutes or more is long enough for a bona fide meal period.” As the Department of Labor's Fact Sheet #22 notes: “For example, an employee who remains at his/her desk while eating lunch and regularly answers the telephone and refers callers is working.”
Punch rounding is optional. Under 29 CFR 785.48(b), federal enforcement accepts “recording the employees' starting time and stopping time to the nearest 5 minutes, or to the nearest one-tenth or quarter of an hour” when it “will not result, over a period of time, in failure to compensate the employees properly for all the time they have actually worked.” The 15-minute choice is the familiar 7-minute rule: 1 to 7 minutes past a quarter hour round down and 8 to 14 round up. Pick 5, 6, or 15 minutes to round every stamp and compare your total against exact minutes.
Federal overtime runs by one workweek at a time. Under 29 CFR 778.105, “An employee's workweek is a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours—seven consecutive 24-hour periods.” Under 29 U.S.C. 207(a)(1), work “for a workweek longer than forty hours” pays “at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed.” Regular pay and overtime pay are each rounded to the nearest cent before they are added together. Convert yearly pay in the hourly to salary calculator.
Video walkthrough
A 3-minute walkthrough of how daily clock punches, unpaid meal breaks and punch rounding work out to a weekly gross pay.
Read the transcript
What a week of punches pays
0:00 What does a week of clock punches pay?
0:02 On the page's example card, 46 hours of work come to $588 a week, before tax.
0:10 Type each shift as you clock in and out, with a punched lunch or a split shift.
0:15 Press Calculate and the page adds up the week, and every card moves with the punches you enter.
0:21 Leave days off blank.
How the days add up
0:24 Each day is added on its own, and the running total carries into the next day.
0:29 Day 1 through Day 5 are 9 hours each.
0:32 Overtime starts on Day 5, which has 4 regular hours and 5 overtime hours.
0:39 Then Day 6 adds 1 overtime hour.
0:42 Federal overtime runs by the workweek, not by the day: 168 hours.
0:48 Hours past 40 in it pay at least one and a half times the regular rate.
What an unpaid meal takes out
0:54 Enter an unpaid meal break only for meals you did not punch out for.
0:58 One figure in the break box comes off every worked day.
1:02 Press Calculate and the page takes it off.
1:05 A break of 30 minutes a day takes the week to 43 hours and the pay to $534.
1:13 A meal period is unpaid time only when you are completely relieved from duty to eat.
What punch rounding changes
1:19 Now take a card whose punches miss the quarter hour, so rounding has something to do.
1:25 The table shows that card read to the minute and to the nearest quarter hour, so you can see what rounding does to the week.
1:32 Exact minutes give 41 hours of work, 1 of them overtime, and $830 a week.
1:39 Rounded to the nearest quarter hour, it is 40 hours, and $30 comes off the check.
1:46 Rounding is allowed, but only when it does not, over time, fail to pay for the time actually worked.
How a pay stub writes the check
1:53 Your pay stub writes that check line by line.
1:56 40 regular hours come to $480, and 6 overtime hours, paid at one and a half times the rate.
2:04 Add the lines and you have the week's pay.
2:07 A payroll ledger writes the same check a different way, and this very example shows it: $552 of straight time on every hour, with half-time excess on the extra hours.
Read your own card
2:20 Try a card of your own.
2:22 Change any day's punches, press Calculate, and the cards move with them: this one pays $570 a week.
2:30 The same week repeated pays $30,576 across the year.
2:35 That is the whole method: add each day's punches, take off the unpaid meals, and pay the extra hours at one and a half times the rate.
2:45 Split the week at 40 hours, and every figure on the page follows.
2:49 Try your own card at fastcalc.us.
Time-card minute, rounding, and FLSA overtime pay formulas
pair minutes = clock-out − clock-in (+ 1,440 min when clock-out < clock-in)
rounded punch = floor((2 × punch minutes + step) ÷ (2 × step)) × step for step ∈ {5, 6, 15}
daily net minutes = Σ pair minutes − daily unpaid break minutes
weekly net minutes = Σ daily net minutes (168-hour workweek = 10,080 min max, 29 CFR 778.105)
overtime minutes = max(0, weekly net minutes − 2,400); regular minutes = weekly net minutes − overtime minutes
regular pay = roundHalfUp(rate × regular minutes ÷ 60); overtime pay = roundHalfUp(1.5 × rate × overtime minutes ÷ 60)
gross pay = regular pay + overtime payWorked time-card and punch-rounding examples
Default 46-hour card (29 CFR 778.110(a)): Days 1 to 5 each pair 7:00–12:00 (300 min) and 12:30–16:30 (240 min) for 540 min (9 h). Day 6 adds 8:00–9:00 (60 min) with 0 min of extra unpaid break. Weekly time is 2,760 min (46.00 hours): 40.00 regular hours through Day 5 plus 6.00 overtime hours. At $12.00 an hour, regular pay is $480.00. Overtime pay at $18.00 is $108.00, giving $588.00 gross.
Quarter-hour rounding across five shifts (29 CFR 785.48(b)): Days 1 to 5 each read 7:53–12:07 and 12:31–16:29 at $20.00 an hour. Exact time per day is 254 + 238 = 492 min (8 h 12 min). Across five days that is 41 h (41.00 hours), paying $830.00 (including 1.00 overtime hour at $30.00). Under 15-minute rounding, each day snaps to 8:00–12:00 and 12:30–16:30 (8 h). Rounding cuts 12 min a day, or 60 min for the week, leaving 40.00 hours and $800.00 (−$30.00).
Fact Sheet #21 sample card: The Department of Labor prints a three-day card with whole-hour totals of 8, 8, and 8 (24 hours). Its stamps are Monday 8:00am–12:02pm and 1:00pm–5:03pm, Tuesday 7:57am–11:58am and 1:00pm–5:00pm, and Wednesday 8:02am–12:10pm and 1:06pm–5:05pm. At $15.00 an hour, exact minutes sum to 485 + 481 + 487 = 1,453 min (24 h 13 min, or 24.22 hours, paying $363.25). Under 29 CFR 785.48(b), 15-minute rounding gives 24 h 15 min ($363.75). Five-minute rounding gives 24 h 20 min ($365.00), and 6-minute rounding gives 24 h 18 min ($364.50) because 12:10pm rounds up.
How your time card maps to your pay stub and 29 CFR 516.2 records
Under 29 CFR 516.2(a), an employer must keep core time and pay records for each covered nonexempt worker. Required items in 29 CFR 516.2(a)(5)–(7) include when the workweek starts, the hourly rate, and “Hours worked each workday and total hours worked each workweek”. As the Department of Labor's Fact Sheet #21 states: “Any timekeeping plan is acceptable as long as it is complete and accurate.” Under 29 CFR 785.48(a), “Time clocks are not required.”
Pay stubs and employer payroll ledgers write the same overtime check in two ways. Consumer stubs show regular hours at 1.0× and overtime hours at 1.5×, as in the worked example above. Payroll ledgers under 29 CFR 516.2(a)(8)–(9) instead list straight time on all 46.00 hours ($552.00) plus half-time excess ($36.00). As 29 CFR 778.110(a) puts it: “Thus a $12 hourly rate will bring, for an employee who works 46 hours, a total weekly wage of $588 (46 hours at $12 plus 6 at $6).”
Watch for small cent gaps when a pay stub rounds minutes to two decimals first. One shift from 8:00 to 16:20 is 8 h 20 min and pays $150.00 from exact minutes at $18.00 an hour. Multiplying 8.33 hours by $18.00 instead prints $149.94 (−$0.06). Across five such shifts (41 h 40 min), exact minute pay is $765.00. A two-decimal stub (40.00 regular and 1.67 overtime hours) prints $765.09 (+$0.09). Under 29 CFR 516.5(a) and 29 CFR 516.6(a)(1), employers keep payroll ledgers 3 years and “all basic time and earning cards or sheets on which are entered the daily starting and stopping time of individual employees” 2 years. Fact Sheet #21 adds: “Records on which wage computations are based should be retained for two years, i.e., time cards and piece work tickets, wage rate tables, work and time schedules, and records of additions to or deductions from wages.” Check paycheck taxes in the federal paycheck withholding calculator.
Biweekly pay periods, bonuses, daily overtime states, and rounding limits
If you get paid every two weeks, never lump all 14 days into one 80-hour total. Under 29 CFR 778.104, “The Act takes a single workweek as its standard and does not permit averaging of hours over 2 or more weeks.” Take that section's 30-hour and 50-hour schedule at $20.00 an hour. Week 1 (30.00 hours) pays $600.00. Week 2 (50.00 hours, with 10.00 overtime hours) pays $1,100.00. Together they pay $1,700.00, which is $100.00 above straight time on 80 hours. Run Week 1 and Week 2 one by one here.
Your base hourly wage equals your regular rate only when you earn no extra pay under 29 U.S.C. 207(e). Suppose a worker at $12.00 an hour works 46.00 hours and earns a $46.00 production bonus. Under 29 CFR 778.110(b), $598.00 ($552.00 + $46.00) divided by 46 hours sets a $13.00 regular rate and $637.00 total pay. Price weekly bonuses in the overtime pay calculator. Price multi-week bonuses in the deferred bonus overtime calculator and night pay in the shift differential pay calculator.
Under 29 CFR 778.102, the Act “does not generally require” overtime for hours over eight per day or for weekend work, so federal overtime here is weekly. Some states add their own daily overtime rules; test California, Alaska, and Nevada schedules in the state daily overtime calculator. Hospitals using a 14-day 8/80 plan under 29 U.S.C. 207(j) can use the hospital 8 and 80 overtime calculator. If tips count toward the $7.25 floor in 29 U.S.C. 206(a)(1)(C) (“$7.25 an hour, beginning 24 months after that 60th day”), open the tipped wage and tip credit calculator.
Note two punch limits. First, 29 CFR 785.48(b) does not say which way an exact midpoint tie rounds. Whole-minute HH:MM stamps never hit a midpoint on 5-minute (2.5-minute) or 15-minute (7.5-minute) grids. Ties happen only on 6-minute marks (:03, :09, :15, :21, :27, :33, :39, :45, :51, :57), which round up here. Thus 8:03–12:00 rounds to 8:06–12:00 (3 h 54 min), while 8:03–12:03 rounds to 8:06–12:06 (4 h). Second, 29 CFR 785.47 covers only “uncertain and indefinite periods of time involved of a few seconds or minutes duration”. An employer may not “arbitrarily fail to count as hours worked any part, however small, of the employee's fixed or regular working time” (29 CFR 785.47). Under 29 CFR 785.11, “Work not requested but suffered or permitted is work time.” Total multi-week shortfalls in the unpaid overtime back wages calculator.
Assumptions, 6-minute tie breaking, and scope limits
- Day 1 must be the first day of your employer's fixed workweek, and the seven days are one 168-hour workweek. Hours after midnight on Day 7 that fall in the next workweek are not moved; split that shift by hand.
- Overnight shifts add exactly 24 hours to the clock difference. Clock changes for daylight saving time are not modeled, so on those nights enter the clock-out you actually worked to and add or subtract the lost or gained hour yourself.
- Overtime follows 29 U.S.C. 207(a)(1) and 29 CFR 778.105: hours over 40 in one 168-hour workweek pay 1.5 times your hourly rate. State daily caps, double time, union contracts, and 29 U.S.C. 207(j) or 207(k) plans are not modeled.
- Your hourly rate serves as the full regular rate under 29 CFR 778.110(a). This calculator does not model bonuses, commissions, piecework, shift differentials, or other pay that can change the regular rate under 29 U.S.C. 207(e).
- All time in a pair belongs to the day the shift began, even when it crosses midnight. Each day's first punch to last punch must fit within 24 hours (1,440 minutes).
- Under 29 CFR 785.48(b), punch rounding snaps each stamp to 5, 6, or 15 minutes and rounds 6-minute ties (:03, :09, ...) up. One week's gap shows card math only; lawful use under 29 CFR 785.48(b) must average out over time.
- All pay figures show gross wages before income tax, 6.2% Social Security tax, 1.45% Medicare tax, and benefit deductions.
These figures are estimates for learning and planning, not financial, tax, legal or investment advice. Terms of use.
What to do with your time-card total
Check automatic meal deductions against your punches. If you punched out from 12:00 to 12:30, keep Unpaid break minutes at 0 so lunch is not cut twice. On the default 46.00-hour card at $12.00, an extra 30-minute break across 6 days cuts 3.00 overtime hours ($54.00) to $534.00. If you worked through lunch under 29 CFR 785.19(a), check back pay in the unpaid overtime back wages calculator.
Test whether punch rounding explains a gap on your pay stub. Switch Punch rounding among exact, 5, 6, and 15 minutes. Five shifts of 7:53–12:07 and 12:31–16:29 lose 60 minutes ($30.00 at $20.00 an hour) under 15-minute rounding. Keep your own daily log during the 2-year time-card window in 29 CFR 516.6(a)(1).
Send extra pay items or daily overtime schedules to the matching calculator. For a weekly bonus or two rates, open the overtime pay calculator or the shift differential pay calculator. In California, Alaska, or Nevada, run your 7 daily totals in the state daily overtime calculator.
Turn weekly gross pay into net take-home cash before you budget. The default $588.00 weekly check equals $1,176.00 biweekly or $30,576.00 across 52 equal weeks. Open the take-home pay calculator or the federal paycheck withholding calculator to subtract taxes.
Time-card hours, meal break, and punch-rounding questions
How do I convert minutes on a time card into decimal hours?
Divide minutes by 60: 6 minutes is 0.10 hours, 15 is 0.25, 30 is 0.50, and 45 is 0.75. Minutes that are not multiples of 3 (such as 20 minutes = 0.3333 hours) repeat as decimals. Multiply your hourly rate by exact minutes ÷ 60 so two-decimal hour rounding does not shift your check by a few cents.
How many hours is 8:00 to 4:30 with a 30-minute unpaid lunch?
From 8:00 to 16:30 (4:30pm) is 8 hours 30 minutes on the clock. Subtracting a 30-minute meal period under 29 CFR 785.19(a) leaves 8.00 net hours. Five shifts total 40.00 hours ($600.00 at $15.00), while a 45-minute lunch leaves 38.75 hours ($581.25).
How do I enter an overnight graveyard shift that crosses midnight?
Enter clock-in and clock-out in order on the day the shift starts, like 22:00-6:30 or 10:00pm-6:30am. When clock-out is earlier than clock-in, the tool adds 24 hours for 8 hours 30 minutes before breaks. It does not adjust for a daylight saving clock change that falls inside the shift; on those nights, enter the clock-out you actually worked to and add or subtract the lost or gained hour yourself. After a 30-minute meal, that is 8.00 net hours, or $900.00 across five nights at $22.50.
Are 15-minute rest breaks deducted from my time card?
No. Under 29 CFR 785.18, short rest breaks from 5 minutes to about 20 minutes count as paid hours worked. Only a bona fide meal period—ordinarily 30 minutes or more off duty under 29 CFR 785.19(a)—is unpaid.
Is 15-minute quarter-hour time-clock rounding legal?
Under 29 CFR 785.48(b), rounding start and stop times to 5, 6, or 15 minutes is accepted if it averages out over time. Rounding is accepted only when it does not, over time, fail to pay for all time worked; a practice that always rounds against workers is not accepted and can leave minimum wage or overtime unpaid. Check your state agency as well.
How much does a 45-hour time card pay with overtime at $15 an hour?
Under 29 U.S.C. 207(a)(1), 40.00 regular hours at $15.00 pay $600.00 and 5.00 overtime hours at $22.50 pay $112.50. That totals $712.50 gross before tax, which is $37.50 above $675.00 of straight time on 45.00 hours.
Can my employer average a 30-hour week and a 50-hour week on a biweekly pay period to avoid overtime?
No. Under 29 CFR 778.104, each 168-hour workweek stands alone whether you are paid weekly, biweekly, or twice a month. Working 30.00 hours in Week 1 and 50.00 hours in Week 2 still earns 10.00 overtime hours in Week 2 ($1,700.00 at $20.00, not $1,600.00).
Sources
- 29 U.S.C. 207, Maximum hours (Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, Section 7) (current version)
- 29 U.S.C. 206, Minimum wage (Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, Section 6) (current version)
- 29 CFR Part 785 Subpart D, Recording Working Time (29 CFR 785.46 through 785.48) (page modified Oct 29, 2026)
- 29 CFR Part 785 Subpart C, Application of Principles—Rest and Meal Periods (29 CFR 785.11 through 785.19) (page modified Oct 29, 2026)
- 29 CFR Part 778 Subpart B, The Overtime Pay Requirements (29 CFR 778.103 through 778.110) (page modified Oct 29, 2026)
- 29 CFR Part 516 Subpart A, General Requirements—Records To Be Kept by Employers (29 CFR 516.2 through 516.6) (page modified Oct 29, 2026)
- U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Fact Sheet #21: Recordkeeping Requirements under the FLSA (current version)
- U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Fact Sheet #22: Hours Worked Under the FLSA (current version)
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