Decimal Hours Explained: A Timesheet Conversion Chart
Payroll systems, invoices and project trackers often want time in decimal hours, such as 7.75, rather than hours and minutes like 7:45. It is one of the most common sources of timesheet mistakes, because 7.50 hours is 7 hours 30 minutes, not 7 hours 50 minutes. This guide gives you the chart and the rules.
The basic rule
An hour has 60 minutes, so to convert minutes into a decimal hour you divide by 60. 15 minutes is 15 ÷ 60 = 0.25 hours. To go back, multiply the decimal part by 60. 0.75 hours is 0.75 × 60 = 45 minutes.
Minutes to decimal hours chart
| Minutes | Decimal hours | Minutes | Decimal hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 0.08 | 35 | 0.58 |
| 6 | 0.10 | 40 | 0.67 |
| 10 | 0.17 | 45 | 0.75 |
| 12 | 0.20 | 48 | 0.80 |
| 15 | 0.25 | 50 | 0.83 |
| 20 | 0.33 | 54 | 0.90 |
| 24 | 0.40 | 55 | 0.92 |
| 30 | 0.50 | 60 | 1.00 |
The easy anchors to remember: 15 minutes is 0.25, 30 minutes is 0.5, 45 minutes is 0.75, and 6 minutes is 0.1.
Examples
- 7 hours 45 minutes = 7 + 0.75 = 7.75 hours.
- 8 hours 20 minutes = 8 + 0.33 = 8.33 hours.
- 6.5 hours = 6 hours + 0.5 × 60 = 6 hours 30 minutes.
- 3.2 hours = 3 hours + 0.2 × 60 = 3 hours 12 minutes.
Calculating pay
Pay equals decimal hours multiplied by the hourly rate. For 7 hours 45 minutes at 18 per hour: 7.75 × 18 = 139.50. A common mistake is to treat 7:45 as 7.45, which would give 134.10 and short-change the employee by 5.40.
Rounding rules
Many employers round to the nearest 5, 6 or 15 minutes. Rounding to 6 minutes is popular for billing, because 6 minutes is exactly 0.1 hour. Check your employer’s or client’s policy, and keep the original times in case of any disputes.
Use the converters
Use the hours to minutes converter to turn decimal hours into minutes, or seconds to minutes for short durations. For longer spans, try hours to days and weeks to days.