Time to decimal

How to use the converter

1. Choose the direction. Time to decimal turns hours and minutes into decimal hours. Decimal to time turns decimal hours back into hours and minutes.
2. Type the hours and minutes, or the decimal hours. The answer updates as you type.
3. Use Copy result to paste the answer into a timesheet, an invoice or a message.

The minutes to decimal chart above lists every minute from 1 to 60. Print chart prints the chart on its own, on one page, to keep by the time clock or in a payroll folder. To save it as a PDF, choose Save as PDF in the print window.

How to convert minutes to decimal hours

An hour has 60 minutes, so divide the minutes by 60 and add the whole hours:

decimal hours = hours + (minutes / 60)

Going the other way, multiply the part after the point by 60 to get minutes. 7.75 hours is 7 hours and 0.75 x 60 = 45 minutes, so 7:45. 8.1 hours is 8 hours and 6 minutes, or 8:06.

Why some minutes are rounded

Only minutes that divide by 3 come out exactly in two decimal places. 15 minutes is exactly 0.25, and 6 minutes is exactly 0.10. Any other number of minutes gives a decimal that goes on forever: 20 minutes is 0.3333... and 10 minutes is 0.1666..., with the last digit repeating. The chart and the converter round these to 2 places, so 20 minutes shows as 0.33 and 10 minutes as 0.17. Exact figures are in bold in the chart, and the converter tells you when it has rounded.

Decimal to time works the same way in reverse. 8.33 hours is 8 hours and 19.8 minutes. A clock time cannot show part of a minute, so the converter rounds to the nearest minute, here 8:20, and says it has rounded. Exactly half a minute rounds up.

Rounding is where small differences in pay come from. Say you work 20 extra minutes on each of 5 days. Rounding each day first gives 5 x 0.33 = 1.65 hours. Adding the time first gives 1 hour 40 minutes, which is 1.6666..., or 1.67 hours. To keep rounding as small as possible, add up the hours and minutes first, then convert the total once.

Tenths and quarters of an hour

Some employers record time in tenths of an hour (6 minutes each) or quarters (15 minutes each). Federal rules accept time clocks that round starting and stopping times "to the nearest 5 minutes, or to the nearest one-tenth or quarter of an hour", provided that over time it does not fail to pay people "for all the time they have actually worked."

This converter does not round to tenths or quarters. It converts exactly what you enter. The time card calculator has a rounding option for clock times.

Converting in a spreadsheet

Spreadsheets such as Excel and Google Sheets store a time like 7:45 as a part of a day, not as hours. To turn it into decimal hours, multiply by 24: if A2 holds 7:45, then =A2*24 gives 7.75. Format the answer cell as a number, not as a time, or it will still look like a clock time. To round to 2 places, use =ROUND(A2*24, 2).

Questions and answers

Sources

Checked on 7 October 2026. If a rule has changed, please tell us.

• 29 CFR 785.48: Use of time clocks (rounding)