Minutes to decimal hours chart

In short: Decimal hours are minutes divided by 60: 15 minutes is 0.25, 30 is 0.50, 45 is 0.75 and 50 is 0.83. Add the whole hours back on, so a time card total of 38:45 is 38.75 hours. The chart below gives every minute from 1 to 60.

Computed by the work hours calculator's own code. The rounding rule is from 29 CFR 785.48. Last updated 10 October 2026.

Minutes to decimal hours, 1 to 60

The decimal hours column is what nearly every payroll chart prints, including the ones from state labour departments and payroll providers: minutes divided by 60, rounded to hundredths of an hour. Exact gives four places for anyone who wants to avoid rounding twice. The last two columns show the same minute after rounding to the nearest tenth of an hour (6 minute steps) and the nearest quarter hour (15 minute steps), which are the other two conventions time card systems use. Ties round up here; some systems round them down, so check yours.

Read the chart in both directions. 0.83 on a payslip is 50 minutes, and a system that shows 7.5 hours means 7 hours 30 minutes, not 7 hours 50. A decimal that is not on the chart, such as 0.34, sits between two minutes (20 is 0.33 and 21 is 0.35) and usually means the system kept more places than it shows.

How to convert minutes to decimal for payroll

1. Split the time into whole hours and minutes: 38:45 is 38 hours and 45 minutes.
2. Divide the minutes by 60 and round to two places: 45 divided by 60 is 0.75. For 50 minutes it is 0.8333, written 0.83.
3. Add the hours back on: 38 plus 0.75 is 38.75 hours. Multiply by the hourly rate for the pay: 38.75 hours at $18.50 is $716.88.

The commonest timecard conversion mistake is reading the minutes as if they were already decimals: 8:30 on a time clock is 8.50 hours, but 8.30 hours is 8 hours 18 minutes. If a form does not say which it wants, hours and minutes carry a colon and decimals carry a point, and it is worth writing 8.5 rather than 8.50 so nobody reads it as a time. The work hours calculator adds up a week from start and finish times and shows the total both ways, and the guide on how to calculate hours worked walks through breaks, overnight shifts and a full week by hand.

Hundredths, tenths and quarter hours: the three conventions

Time card systems do not all keep the exact minute. Three conventions are common, and the same clock time comes out differently under each:

• Hundredths (two decimal places, the chart's main column) keep the exact minute to within a third of a minute. 8:07 is 8.12.
• Tenths round the time to the nearest 6 minutes, so a decimal hour has one place: 8:07 becomes 8:06, which is 8.1.
• Quarter hours round to the nearest 15 minutes, so the decimals are only ever .00, .25, .50 or .75: 8:07 becomes 8:00, and 8:08 becomes 8:15.

In the United States, 29 CFR 785.48 describes the practice of recording starting and stopping times to the nearest 5 minutes, or to the nearest one-tenth or quarter of an hour, and says it will be accepted for enforcement purposes provided it is used in a way that does not, over a period of time, fail to compensate employees properly for all the time they have actually worked. So quarter hour rounding is allowed when it rounds both ways; rounding a 7 minute late start up to 15 but a 7 minute late finish down to 0 is not. Some states add their own rules, and a contract can promise exact minutes. The chart's two place column needs no such care, because it keeps the minute.

Worked example: one week on a time card, three ways

Here is a week with an unpaid lunch each day, at $18.50 an hour. Hours worked is the time on the clock minus the break; the last three columns convert it under each convention.

The exact total is 38:56, which is 38.93 hours and $720.27 at $18.50. Rounding each day to the nearest tenth and adding up gives 39.00 hours ($721.50); rounding each day to the quarter hour gives 39.00 hours ($721.50). Rounding the weekly total once instead gives 38.90 to the tenth and 39.00 to the quarter hour. The differences are small in one week, a few minutes either way, which is the point of the regulation: over many weeks they must average out. Open this week in the work hours calculator to change a time and watch the totals move, or read how to calculate overtime pay for what happens past 40 hours.

Decimal hours back to minutes

Going the other way, multiply the decimal part by 60. Two place decimals do not always land on a whole minute, so the chart gives the exact minutes and the minute a time card would show. 0.83 is 49.8 minutes, read as 50; 0.33 is 19.8, read as 20.

Two conversions come up constantly on timesheets. 15 minutes on a timesheet is 0.25, and 7.5 hours is 7:30. If you are checking a payslip, the hourly to salary calculator turns the rate into weekly and annual pay, and the military time converter counts the hours between two 24-hour clock times, in hours and minutes and in decimals.