Shift hours
calculator
Two tools on one page: add up your team's hours, or split one shift between several people in consecutive blocks.
Manual · Paste · CSV · Nothing leaves your browser
01 · The tool
Add up your team's hours
Enter the shifts however suits you. The per-employee breakdown and total come out instantly, with overnight shifts already handled.
Add your shifts
Choose how to enter your schedule
No shifts added yet
Hours summary
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Add shifts and the hours per employee and team total appear instantly.
02 · Splitting shifts
Split one shift between several people
Give us the window to cover and how many people cover it. The splitter cuts the minutes into consecutive blocks, handles the day change, and hands you the text ready to paste in the team chat.
The window to cover
Start, end, and how many people share it
Up to 24 people
Who covers each block
Optional. Names travel with the split when you copy it.
Shift split
3 people8h
2 h 40 min each
When the division is not exact, the first shifts take the extra minute. Same inputs, same split, every time.
22:00 - 06:00
No gaps left
Counting by hand works once. A team needs the math to add up on its own, week after week.
03 · Reading the totals
What the hours tell you before you publish
The total is only the start. With hours per employee in front of you, three signals flag a schedule worth adjusting.
01
Lopsided hours
When two people clear 40 hours and others sit well below, there is room to rebalance shifts before you generate any overtime.Maria 46 h · Leo 21 h
02
Spikes on specific days
If Friday and Saturday always pile up hours, you may need an extra person or shorter shifts spread across more of the team.Fri 38 h · Sat 41 h · Mon 12 h
03
Planned is not worked
The schedule shows the plan. Only clock-in confirms what was actually worked, absences and last-minute changes included.Planned 40 h · Clocked 37.5 h
04 · Overnight shifts
A night shift is never negative hours
When the end time looks smaller than the start, we add 24. A 22:00 to 06:00 shift is 8 hours, not minus 16. The calculator applies the rule for you, so you just type the shift.
Overnight math
How to Calculate Shift Hours
The shift hours formula is simple: subtract the start time from the end time. A shift that starts at 9:00 and ends at 17:00 is 8 hours. If the employee took a 30-minute unpaid break, the paid time is 7.5 hours.
Shift hours = End time − Start time − Unpaid breaks
For a team, you repeat this for every shift and then sum each employee's totals. An employee working five 8-hour shifts has a weekly total of 40 hours. The calculator above does this automatically — enter the shifts, click calculate, and see per-employee and team-wide totals instantly.
Overnight Shift Calculations
Overnight shifts trip up many managers because the end time is numerically smaller than the start time. A shift from 22:00 to 06:00 looks like negative 16 hours if you subtract naively.
The fix is the +24 trick: add 24 to the end time when it falls before the start time. So 06:00 becomes 30:00, and 30 − 22 = 8 hours. This calculator applies the +24 rule automatically, so you never need to think about it. Just enter 22:00–06:00 and it returns 8 hours.
If an overnight shift also spans a pay-period boundary (for example, Sunday night into Monday morning), check whether your payroll system assigns the hours to the day the shift started or the day it ended. Most systems use the start date, but local labor laws may differ. Getting this right matters for accurate employee hour tracking.
How to Split Shifts Between Employees
Splitting shifts means two different things. The first is one coverage window shared by several people: eight night hours to cover, three people to cover them. Divide the minutes, chain the blocks, done. The shift splitter on this page handles it instantly, day change included.
The second is sharing a whole week of shifts fairly across a team, and that is not a division. It depends on contracted hours, rest periods between shifts, how weekends and holidays fall, approved time off, and who has already worked three nights in a row. Balance is measured over a month, not over a day.
When you build the weekly schedule, check four things:
- Contracted hours. Everyone should land close to their agreed weekly hours, neither over nor far below.
- Rest between shifts. A closing shift followed by an opening leaves very few hours of rest. That pairing is the first one to break.
- Nights and weekends on rotation. The blocks nobody asks for get shared by rotation, not by habit.
- Availability and preferences. What each person asked for counts, and writing it down prevents half of the last-minute swaps.
A hand-made split works for one week and drifts by the third: someone calls in sick, someone else asks for a swap, and the balance slips without anyone noticing. Automated shift scheduling keeps that running total open week after week, and time tracking confirms afterwards what was actually worked.
Weekly Hours Tracking for Compliance
United States (FLSA)
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must receive overtime pay (at least 1.5× regular rate) for any hours worked beyond 40 in a single workweek. Accurate weekly totals are not optional — they are a legal requirement. Using a dedicated overtime calculator alongside this shift hours tool helps you estimate the cost impact before the pay period closes.
European Union
The EU Working Time Directive caps the average workweek at 48 hours (calculated over a reference period of up to 17 weeks). Member states may add stricter rules. In Spain, for example, overtime is capped at 80 hours per year per employee. Tracking shift hours weekly lets you flag employees approaching these limits before violations occur.
The 7-Minute Rule
Many US employers round clock-in and clock-out times to the nearest quarter hour using the 7-minute rounding rule. If an employee clocks in 7 minutes or less before the quarter hour, the time rounds down; 8 minutes or more rounds up. While legal under the FLSA, rounding must not systematically short-change employees over time. Tracking exact shift hours helps you audit whether rounding is neutral.
How to Spot Scheduling Imbalances
Once you have per-employee weekly totals, look for red flags:
- Lopsided hours. If two employees work 45+ hours while three others are under 30, you have a distribution problem. Rebalancing shifts across the team can eliminate overtime without hiring.
- Consistent overtime on specific days. If Friday and Saturday always generate overtime, those shifts may need an extra person — or shorter individual shifts spread across more staff.
- Ghost hours. Shifts that are scheduled but never worked (due to no-shows or last-minute changes) inflate planned hours. Comparing scheduled vs. actual hours reveals where your plan diverges from reality.
Understanding the true cost of overtime helps you put a price tag on these imbalances and build a case for better scheduling practices.
Shift Hours Formula Reference
This calculator uses the standard formulas used by payroll and scheduling professionals:
- Single shift duration = End time − Start time (add 24 to end time if overnight)
- Daily hours per employee = Sum of all shift durations for that employee on a given day
- Weekly hours per employee = Sum of daily hours across all days worked
- Team total = Sum of all employees' weekly hours
- Average hours per employee = Team total ÷ Number of employees
For teams that need ongoing hour tracking beyond a one-time calculation, automated employee time tracking eliminates manual data entry and keeps records audit-ready.
05 · Questions
Frequently asked questions
- How do I calculate total hours for a shift?
- Subtract the start time from the end time. A shift from 9:00 to 17:00 is 8 hours. For overnight shifts, add 24 to the end time if it is earlier than the start. A shift from 22:00 to 06:00 the next day is 8 hours: 06 + 24 = 30, minus 22 = 8. This calculator handles all of that automatically, including overnight shifts.
- How do I split shifts fairly between several people?
- For one coverage window, divide its minutes by the number of people and chain the blocks one after another. The splitter on this page does it in a click: 22:00 to 06:00 across 3 people is 2 h 40 min each. When the division is not exact, the first blocks take the extra minute, so the same inputs always produce the same split. Sharing a whole week fairly is a different job: it depends on contracted hours, rest between shifts and approved time off, which is what scheduling software is for.
- How do I split an overnight shift that crosses midnight?
- Add 24 to the end time and split that total. A shift from 22:00 to 06:00 is 8 hours, not minus 16. The splitter applies the rule on its own: type 22:00 and 06:00, pick how many people cover it, and the blocks come out with the day change already resolved. Setting the same start and end time gives you a full 24 hour window.
- How do I calculate hours for a full week?
- Add up each employee's daily shift hours across all days they worked. If someone works 8 hours Monday through Friday, their weekly total is 40 hours. This calculator totals hours per employee and per day automatically, so you can see at a glance who is close to overtime thresholds and where you may be over or understaffed.
- What is the easiest way to track shift hours for a team?
- The quickest method is to paste your existing schedule directly into the text input. Use the format: Employee Name, Day, start-end time. For example: Maria, Monday, 9:00-17:00. The calculator parses the text and totals everything in seconds. If your schedule is already in a spreadsheet, export it as a CSV and upload it directly.
- How do I know when an employee hits overtime?
- In most countries, overtime kicks in after 40 hours per week (US) or 48 hours per week (EU). Once you calculate the weekly totals, compare each employee's total against your local threshold. Any hours above the threshold are typically paid at 1.5x the regular rate. Scheduling software can flag this automatically as you build the schedule.
- Can I use this to calculate hours from a photo of a schedule?
- Not directly, but you can copy the shift times from a photo into the text input. Type each employee's name followed by their shifts, one per line, and the calculator will add them up. For recurring schedules, saving the text input as a template lets you reuse it each week with minimal changes.
Counting hours is a start.
Tracking them on their own is better.
Turnozo tracks hours as your team clocks in and out. No manual counting, no scattered spreadsheets: timesheets ready for payroll.