Hours and minutes to decimal hours
Timesheets, invoices and payroll multiply hours by a rate, so 7 h 45 min has to become 7.75. Enter hours and minutes to get the decimal value, or a decimal to get it back as a clock duration.
7 h 45 min = 7.75 h · 8 h 20 min = 8.33 h · 6.4 h = 6 h 24 min
h + min → hours (decimal)
= 465 minutes · rounded to a quarter hour: 7.75 h
hours (decimal) → h + min
How the conversion works
There are 60 minutes in an hour, so the decimal hours are the hours plus the minutes divided by 60. The reverse keeps the whole hours and multiplies the fraction by 60. The only difficulty is rounding: 20 minutes is 0.3333… hours, and a system that keeps two decimals stores 0.33, which is 19.8 minutes. Over a month of timesheets those fractions of a minute add up, which is why some payroll software works in hundredths and some in quarter hours.
For longer durations (days to hours, weeks to days) and for seconds, the plain time converter applies; this page only deals with the hours-and-minutes format.
Minutes to decimal hours
Exact value, the two-decimal figure most payroll systems store, and the nearest quarter hour.
| Minutes | Exact | Hundredths | Quarter hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 min | 0.0833 | 0.08 | 0.00 |
| 10 min | 0.1667 | 0.17 | 0.25 |
| 15 min | 0.2500 | 0.25 | 0.25 |
| 20 min | 0.3333 | 0.33 | 0.25 |
| 25 min | 0.4167 | 0.42 | 0.50 |
| 30 min | 0.5000 | 0.50 | 0.50 |
| 35 min | 0.5833 | 0.58 | 0.50 |
| 40 min | 0.6667 | 0.67 | 0.75 |
| 45 min | 0.7500 | 0.75 | 0.75 |
| 50 min | 0.8333 | 0.83 | 0.75 |
| 55 min | 0.9167 | 0.92 | 1.00 |
| 60 min | 1.0000 | 1.00 | 1.00 |
Frequently asked questions
45 minutes is 45 ÷ 60 = 0.75 hours, so 7 h 45 min = 7.75 hours.
Divide the minutes by 60. 20 minutes = 0.333 hours, 30 minutes = 0.5, 40 minutes = 0.667. Most payroll systems keep two decimals, so 20 minutes becomes 0.33.
Keep the whole hours and multiply the decimal part by 60. 7.75 hours = 7 h and 0.75 × 60 = 45 min. 8.3 hours = 8 h 18 min, not 8 h 30 min.
Because payroll multiplies hours by an hourly rate, and 8:30 on a clock is 8.5 hours in arithmetic. The colon notation is a clock time; the decimal is a duration.
Some employers round worked time to the nearest 15 minutes (0.25 h): 7 min rounds down to 0, 8 to 22 min round to 0.25, 23 to 37 min to 0.5. The converter shows both the exact decimal and the quarter-hour value.