- How do I convert time to decimal hours?
- Keep the hours as they are, divide the minutes by 60, divide the seconds by 3,600, and add the three together. 7 hours 45 minutes is 7 + (45 ÷ 60) = 7.75 hours. 1 hour 30 minutes 30 seconds is 1 + 0.5 + 0.00833 = 1.5083 hours. The hours part never changes; only the sub-hour parts get converted.
- Why is 7:45 equal to 7.75 and not 7.45?
- Because clock minutes count to 60 and decimals count to 100. The digits after a decimal point are hundredths of an hour, so 0.45 hours is 27 minutes, not 45. To get from minutes to the decimal, divide by 60: 45 ÷ 60 = 0.75. This is the single most expensive timesheet mistake there is. At $22 an hour, entering 7.45 instead of 7.75 on a daily timesheet costs $6.60 a day — about $143 over a month of five-day weeks.
- What are the common minutes in decimal form?
- 15 minutes is 0.25, 30 minutes is 0.5, and 45 minutes is 0.75 — the quarters are the easy ones. The rest: 5 min is 0.0833, 10 min is 0.1667, 20 min is 0.3333, 25 min is 0.4167, 35 min is 0.5833, 40 min is 0.6667, 50 min is 0.8333, and 55 min is 0.9167. Six minutes is exactly 0.1, which is why tenth-of-an-hour billing exists: every 6-minute block is one clean decimal digit.
- Should I round to the quarter hour or the tenth of an hour?
- Whichever your employer or client already uses — don't pick your own. Quarter-hour rounding (0.25 blocks) is the traditional payroll convention and is permitted under US federal wage-and-hour guidance as long as it's applied neutrally: 7 minutes or less rounds down, 8 minutes or more rounds up, so it evens out over time rather than favouring one side. Tenth-of-an-hour rounding (0.1 blocks, 6 minutes) is the norm for lawyers, agencies, and anyone billing in increments. The result card shows both so you can match whichever one your system expects.
- How do I convert decimal hours back to hours and minutes?
- Multiply the part after the decimal point by 60. 7.75 hours: 0.75 × 60 = 45, so it's 7 hours 45 minutes. 3.2 hours: 0.2 × 60 = 12, so 3 hours 12 minutes. If the result still has a decimal, multiply that by 60 again for seconds — 1.5083 hours gives 0.5083 × 60 = 30.5 minutes, and 0.5 × 60 = 30 seconds, so 1:30:30.
- Can I enter more than 59 minutes?
- Yes. Plenty of systems export a day or a week as a flat minute count, and re-doing the carrying by hand before you convert is pointless work. Type 470 in the Minutes box and you get 7.8333 hours and a clock reading of 7:50:00. The same goes for seconds — 3,725 seconds reads as 1:02:05.
- How do I do this conversion in Excel or Google Sheets?
- If the cell holds a real time value, multiply by 24: =A1*24 turns 7:45 into 7.75, and you may need to format the result cell as Number rather than Duration. If the hours and minutes sit in separate columns, use =A1+B1/60. Going the other way, =A1/24 formatted as [h]:mm turns 7.75 back into 7:45. The square brackets let the hours run past 24 instead of wrapping.
- What about a shift that crosses midnight?
- This page converts a duration you already know, not two clock times. If you have a start and an end — 10:30 PM to 6:15 AM — work out the length first with the hours calculator, then bring the result here (or just read the decimal hours it already gives you). Subtracting the times directly gives a negative number when a shift crosses midnight; add 24 hours to the end time before subtracting.
- Is what I type saved or sent anywhere?
- No. The conversion runs in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server or stored, and closing the tab clears it.
