Decimal Hours Converter
7:45 becomes 7.75, and back again
Payroll forms and spreadsheets want decimal hours. Clocks, calendars and human memory produce hours and minutes. This page converts between the two in either direction, and the chart further down covers every minute from 1 to 60 if you would rather read it off a table.
Hours and minutes to decimal
Decimal hours to hours and minutes
How the conversion works
An hour has 60 minutes, so a decimal hour is simply the minutes divided by 60. Everything else follows from that one division. The direction that trips people up is the reverse one, because 0.4 hours looks like it should be 40 minutes and is in fact 24.
Decimal hours = hours + (minutes / 60)
Minutes = (decimal hours - whole hours) x 60
:15 = 0.25, :30 = 0.50, :45 = 0.75
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Only the minutes convert. The whole hours are carried across unchanged, so 7:45 keeps its 7.
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The quarter hours are the ones worth memorising: 0.25, 0.50 and 0.75.
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Two decimal places is the payroll convention, so 20 minutes shows as 0.33 rather than 0.3333.
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Decimal hours over 24 stay as they are: a 40 hour week is 40.00, never 16.00.
Worked example
A shift of 7 hours and 45 minutes, converted for a payroll form and then checked back:
45 minutes / 60 = 0.75
7 hours + 0.75 = 7.75 decimal hours
Checking back: 0.75 x 60 = 45 minutes, so 7.75 is 7:45
At 20 per hour: 7.75 x 20 = 155.00
Had the same shift been written as 7.45 on the form, it would have been read as 7 hours 27 minutes and paid at 149.00 - six pounds, dollars or euros short for one day, and about thirty for the week.
Minutes to decimal hours chart
Every minute from 1 to 60, rounded to two decimal places. Left column 1 to 30, right column 31 to 60.
1 min = 0.02
2 min = 0.03
3 min = 0.05
4 min = 0.07
5 min = 0.08
6 min = 0.10
7 min = 0.12
8 min = 0.13
9 min = 0.15
10 min = 0.17
11 min = 0.18
12 min = 0.20
13 min = 0.22
14 min = 0.23
15 min = 0.25
16 min = 0.27
17 min = 0.28
18 min = 0.30
19 min = 0.32
20 min = 0.33
21 min = 0.35
22 min = 0.37
23 min = 0.38
24 min = 0.40
25 min = 0.42
26 min = 0.43
27 min = 0.45
28 min = 0.47
29 min = 0.48
30 min = 0.50
31 min = 0.52
32 min = 0.53
33 min = 0.55
34 min = 0.57
35 min = 0.58
36 min = 0.60
37 min = 0.62
38 min = 0.63
39 min = 0.65
40 min = 0.67
41 min = 0.68
42 min = 0.70
43 min = 0.72
44 min = 0.73
45 min = 0.75
46 min = 0.77
47 min = 0.78
48 min = 0.80
49 min = 0.82
50 min = 0.83
51 min = 0.85
52 min = 0.87
53 min = 0.88
54 min = 0.90
55 min = 0.92
56 min = 0.93
57 min = 0.95
58 min = 0.97
59 min = 0.98
60 min = 1.00
Read it the other way for the reverse conversion: find the decimal value your form shows and the minutes are on the left of the equals sign. A value that lands between two rows, such as 0.44, falls between them in minutes too - in that case between 26 and 27.
Where the rounding actually matters
Rounding to two decimals loses at most 0.005 of an hour, which is eighteen seconds. That is irrelevant on one entry and still irrelevant across a year. What does bite is rounding the same entry twice: convert 7:50 to 7.83, let a form that wants one decimal round it to 7.8, convert back, and the shift has quietly become 7:48. Convert once, from the original minutes, and keep the minutes as the record you go back to.
Stop retyping your hours
Converting a timesheet by hand means the real record is a note somewhere. TickTappy keeps the minutes themselves, and shows both hh:mm and decimal totals for the day and the week. Free, no account needed.
FAQ
How do I convert minutes to decimal hours?
Divide the minutes by 60. Fifteen minutes is 15 / 60 = 0.25 hours, twenty minutes is 20 / 60 = 0.33 hours, and forty-five minutes is 45 / 60 = 0.75 hours. To go the other way, multiply the decimal by 60: 0.4 hours x 60 = 24 minutes.
Is 7.75 hours the same as 7 hours 75 minutes?
No, and confusing the two is the most expensive mistake in this corner of arithmetic. 7.75 hours is 7 hours 45 minutes. There is no such thing as 75 minutes past the hour - after 59 minutes the hour rolls over.
Why does payroll ask for decimal hours at all?
Because pay is a multiplication. Decimal hours multiply by an hourly rate directly, while hours and minutes do not: 7:30 times 20 is meaningless until you turn it into 7.5 times 20. Spreadsheets and payroll software want the number they can multiply.
What about minutes that do not divide evenly, like 20?
Twenty minutes is exactly one third of an hour, so its decimal form repeats: 0.3333... The chart on this page rounds to two decimal places (0.33), which is what payroll forms expect. Over a full week the rounding is worth a few seconds, not a few minutes.
Which minute values convert exactly?
Any whole number of minutes that divides into 60 without a remainder: 6 minutes is 0.1, 15 is 0.25, 30 is 0.5, 36 is 0.6 and 45 is 0.75. Everything else rounds, which is why the quarter hour became the standard billing unit.
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