Time Card Calculator Online

How to Use the Time Card Calculator

1. Enter Clock-In and Clock-Out for Each Day: The grid shows Mon through Sun with default 09:00 / 17:00 times — overwrite each day's Clock-in and Clock-out in 24-hour format (HH:MM). The calculator handles overnight shifts automatically (clock-out earlier than clock-in is treated as crossing midnight).
2. Enter Unpaid Break Minutes: The fourth column accepts break minutes (default 30). Enter the unpaid lunch/meal break only — paid rest breaks under federal and most state law stay on the clock and should NOT be subtracted here. Per-day hours update as you type.
3. Set Your Hourly Rate (Optional): Enter your Hourly rate ($) to see Gross pay alongside total hours. The calculator applies federal weekly overtime — first 40 hours at straight time, anything above 40 at 1.5×. Leave it blank if you only need hours.
4. Review Totals and Copy: The right-side panel shows Total hours, Regular (first 40h), Overtime (×1.5), and Gross pay. Tap the copy button to lift the total into a payroll spreadsheet, email, or text. Nothing leaves your browser — no account, no upload.

Why Use a Time Card Calculator?

Paper time cards, punch-clock printouts, and shift apps all end with the same chore: adding minutes across a week, subtracting lunch breaks, and figuring out how much of the total is straight time versus overtime. Doing it by hand invites math errors that quietly cost employees money or expose employers to wage-and-hour claims. A calculator that knows the FLSA 40-hour weekly threshold, handles overnight shifts, and shows the per-day breakdown removes that risk in seconds. Common scenarios:

• Hourly W-2 employees checking a paycheck — Spot-check whether your employer's payroll system matched your actual punch times before signing off on the pay stub; underpayment claims under the FLSA have a two-year statute of limitations (three years if the violation was willful).
• Small-business owners running payroll manually — A shop or restaurant with a handful of hourly staff doesn't need a $30/month time-tracking service; a calculator plus a printed weekly sheet covers the legal minimum for the FLSA recordkeeping requirements in 29 CFR § 516.
• Freelancers and consultants billing hourly — Block out start/stop times across the week, deduct any non-billable breaks, and copy the total straight into Harvest, FreshBooks, or a flat invoice.
• Shift workers with overnight schedules — Nurses, security guards, warehouse pickers, and bartenders frequently clock out past midnight; manual addition breaks down when 23:30 → 07:30 has to mean "8 hours," not "−16."
• HR auditing a department before approving timesheets — Quickly verify whether anyone crossed the 40-hour line and how many OT hours each employee earned, before the data hits ADP or Gusto.
• Workers in California, Alaska, Nevada, or Colorado — Daily overtime rules (covered in the comparison table below) mean a 10-hour Monday can earn OT even if the week never crosses 40; checking by hand is error-prone.

If you only need the gap between two single timestamps (no break, no full week), the Hours Between Calculator is a faster two-field input. For salary-equivalent or take-home math, see the Paycheck Calculator and Salary Calculator.

Federal vs Selected State Overtime Rules

Per the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division. Always check your state Department of Labor for current rates — minimum wages and exempt thresholds change every January 1.

Jurisdiction	Weekly OT threshold	Daily OT threshold	Double-time threshold	Notes
Federal (FLSA)	40 h/week at 1.5×	None at federal level	None at federal level	Federal minimum wage $7.25/h; white-collar exempt salary floor $684/week ($35,568/yr) since the 2019 rule
California	40 h/week at 1.5×	8 h/day at 1.5×	12 h/day at 2×	7th-consecutive-workday: 1.5× for first 8 h, 2× beyond 8 h (Cal. Labor Code § 510)
Alaska	40 h/week at 1.5×	8 h/day at 1.5×	None	Daily OT applies to employers with 4+ employees; exemptions narrower than federal
Nevada	40 h/week at 1.5×	8 h/day at 1.5× (if rate < 1.5× state min wage)	None	Daily OT only triggers below the 1.5×-minimum-wage pay threshold
Colorado	40 h/week at 1.5×	12 h/day at 1.5× OR 12 consecutive hours	None	Also 1.5× after 40 h in workweek, whichever yields more (COMPS Order)
Most other states	40 h/week at 1.5×	None	None	Follow federal FLSA; some states (e.g., NY) layer extra rules for residential or agricultural work

The calculator on this page applies the federal weekly 40-hour rule only. If you're in California, Alaska, Nevada, or Colorado and worked any 8+ or 12+ hour shift, your true OT will be higher than the federal calculation shown.

Common Rounding Rules — The "7-Minute Rule"

The FLSA permits employers to round time punches to a consistent increment (commonly 6, 10, or 15 minutes) as long as rounding doesn't, on average over time, shortchange employees (29 CFR § 785.48(b)). The most widely used scheme is the 15-minute "7-minute rule":

Actual punch	Rounded to (15-min)	Direction
1–7 minutes past the quarter	Down to the quarter just passed	Down
8–14 minutes past the quarter	Up to the next quarter	Up
Exactly on the quarter	Stays	No change

So 8:07 a.m. rounds to 8:00, but 8:08 a.m. rounds to 8:15. Employers may NOT round only in their favor — California in particular has been chipping away at rounding via court decisions (e.g., Camp v. Home Depot, 2024), and several states forbid it altogether for meal-period punches. This calculator does not apply rounding by default; enter exact times.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are unpaid lunch breaks required by federal law?

No — the FLSA does not require meal or rest breaks. It only specifies that short rest breaks of 5 to 20 minutes are compensable (count as paid hours) and that bona fide meal periods of 30 minutes or more, during which the employee is fully relieved of duty, may be unpaid (29 CFR § 785.18–19). State law often fills the gap: California requires a 30-minute unpaid meal period before the 5th hour, and a second meal period before the 10th hour, for non-exempt employees. Enter only the unpaid portion in the break field.

What's the difference between exempt and non-exempt under the FLSA?

Non-exempt employees are covered by the FLSA's minimum-wage and overtime rules and must be paid 1.5× their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek. Exempt employees (typically salaried executive, administrative, professional, computer, or outside-sales workers) are not entitled to FLSA overtime if they meet both a duties test AND a salary test — currently a $684/week ($35,568/yr) floor at the federal level. Job titles alone don't establish exemption; misclassification is one of the most common DOL findings. Five states (CA, CO, CT, NY, WA) require higher salary thresholds.

How is overtime calculated for tipped employees?

Tipped employees' overtime must be calculated on the full federal minimum wage ($7.25/h), not the $2.13 cash wage. The federal formula: ($7.25 × 1.5) − $5.12 max tip credit = $5.76 cash wage per OT hour. Employers cannot take a larger tip credit on overtime hours than on straight-time hours (DOL Fact Sheet #15). Several states (CA, MN, OR, WA, NV, MT, AK, plus several cities) prohibit the tip credit entirely — tipped staff there earn the full state minimum plus tips on top.

How does California's daily overtime actually work?

California Labor Code § 510 layers daily OT on top of the federal weekly rule. For a non-exempt employee: hours 1–8 in a workday are straight time; hours 8–12 are 1.5×; anything beyond 12 is 2× ("double time"). The 7th consecutive workday in a workweek triggers 1.5× for the first 8 hours and 2× beyond 8. A worker who logs 10-hour Monday-through-Friday days earns 10 hours of daily OT for the week even though weekly total (50 h) only crosses 40 by 10 — same result here, but the math diverges fast with shift mixing. Use a California-specific calculator for compliance.

If I work two jobs for the same employer, do hours add up for overtime?

Generally yes — the FLSA "joint employer" and single-employer rules require that all hours an employee works for the same employer in a workweek be combined for overtime purposes, regardless of whether the jobs are at different locations, departments, or pay rates. When pay rates differ across the two jobs, the regular rate for OT is the weighted average of the rates (or, if both employer and employee agree in advance, the rate of the job during which the OT was performed — 29 CFR § 778.115 and § 778.419). Separate, unrelated employers do not aggregate.

Is the "7-minute rounding rule" still legal?

Federally yes, under 29 CFR § 785.48(b), provided rounding is neutral over time. California has effectively ended employer-favorable rounding following Donohue v. AMN Services (2021) and Camp v. Home Depot (2024) — the California Supreme Court held that when the employer has the technology to capture exact time, rounding that results in unpaid time is unlawful. Other states are watching. If you operate in California, set rounding to zero or use exact punches; if you're federal-only and rounding is neutral on average, you remain compliant.

Can my private-sector employer give me "comp time" (paid time off) instead of overtime cash?

No, not under the FLSA. Comp time in lieu of OT cash is only legal for public-sector (federal, state, or local government) employees under 29 U.S.C. § 207(o), and even then it must be 1.5 hours per OT hour, capped at 240 hours (480 for public-safety/seasonal workers). Private-sector employers must pay OT in cash on the regular payday for the period the OT was worked. "We'll give you next Friday off instead" arrangements at private employers are an FLSA violation regardless of whether the employee agrees.

Does the calculator handle overnight shifts that cross midnight?

Yes. If your clock-out time is earlier in the day than your clock-in (for example, in 22:00 and out 06:00), the calculator adds 24 hours and reports 8 paid hours minus your break. The FLSA does not split a shift across two workweeks; the entire shift counts toward the workweek that contains the start of the shift, unless the employer has formally designated a different workweek start time.

Why is the gross pay shown only an estimate?

The calculator applies a single hourly rate and the federal 40-hour weekly OT formula. It does not deduct taxes, FICA, Medicare, garnishments, health-plan premiums, or 401(k) contributions — those reduce gross to net. It also does not apply state daily OT (CA, AK, NV, CO), double-time, shift differentials, weighted-average rates across multiple roles, tip-credit math, or piece-rate calculations. For tax-aware net pay, use the Paycheck Calculator; for working-day counts across a month, see the Working Days Calculator.