Hours and Minutes to Decimal Converter
Turn 7 hours 15 minutes into 7.25, or a decimal back into hours and minutes, with payroll rounding to the nearest 6, 15 or 30 minutes and the work shown.
Hours and Minutes to Decimal Converter: with the default inputs, result is 7.25 hours.
Used when converting the other way.
- Decimal hours
- 7.25
- Hours and minutes
- 7 h 15 m
- Total minutes
- 435
- Pay at that rate
- $0.00
- Minutes gained or lost to rounding
- 0
Assumptions
- An hour is 60 minutes; decimal hours are minutes ÷ 60 with no rounding until the policy is applied.
- Rounding is to the nearest increment, with halves rounding up — the neutral convention federal rules contemplate.
- Pay is the decimal hours multiplied by the rate, with no overtime, premium or differential applied.
| Minutes | Decimal | What writing it straight in would give |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | — |
| 1 | 0.0167 | 0.01 (out by 0.4 min) |
| 2 | 0.0333 | 0.02 (out by 0.8 min) |
| 3 | 0.05 | 0.03 (out by 1.2 min) |
| 4 | 0.0667 | 0.04 (out by 1.6 min) |
| 5 | 0.0833 | 0.05 (out by 2 min) |
| 6 | 0.1 | 0.06 (out by 2.4 min) |
| 7 | 0.1167 | 0.07 (out by 2.8 min) |
| 8 | 0.1333 | 0.08 (out by 3.2 min) |
| 9 | 0.15 | 0.09 (out by 3.6 min) |
| 10 | 0.1667 | 0.1 (out by 4 min) |
| 11 | 0.1833 | 0.11 (out by 4.4 min) |
| 12 | 0.2 | 0.12 (out by 4.8 min) |
| 13 | 0.2167 | 0.13 (out by 5.2 min) |
| 14 | 0.2333 | 0.14 (out by 5.6 min) |
The column people need and never have to hand. Quarter hours are exact; most others are not.
How this is worked out
The formula
decimal hours = hours + minutes ÷ 60 hours and minutes = floor(decimal) h, then (decimal − floor(decimal)) × 60 m With a rounding policy of n minutes: rounded minutes = round(total minutes ÷ n) × n
Open How it’s calculated above to see this worked through with your own numbers.
What you enter
- Convert
- Choose one of 2 options.Hours and minutes → decimal · Decimal → hours and minutes
- Hours
- A number.0 or more · whole numbers only · defaults to 7
- Minutes
- A number.from 0 to 59 · whole numbers only · defaults to 15
- Decimal hours
- Used when converting the other way.0 or more · defaults to 7.25
- Round to(under More options)
- Many employers round each entry before paying it. The quarter-hour rule is the one US federal law permits, provided it does not consistently favour the employer.No rounding — exact · Nearest minute · Nearest 6 minutes (tenth of an hour) · Nearest 15 minutes (quarter hour) · Nearest 30 minutes (half hour)
- Hourly rate(under More options)
- Optional. Leave at zero to skip the pay figures.in dollars · 0 or more · defaults to 0
What you get back
- Resultmain answer
- Decimal hours
- Hours and minutes
- Total minutes
- Pay at that rate
- Minutes gained or lost to rounding
What this assumes
- An hour is 60 minutes; decimal hours are minutes ÷ 60 with no rounding until the policy is applied.
- Rounding is to the nearest increment, with halves rounding up — the neutral convention federal rules contemplate.
- Pay is the decimal hours multiplied by the rate, with no overtime, premium or differential applied.
About this calculator
Payroll runs on decimals; clocks run on sixties. Converting between them is one division, and getting it wrong is worth about nine minutes a shift.
The mistake everybody makes once
7 hours 15 minutes is 7.25, not 7.15. Minutes are sixtieths, so you divide by 60 rather than moving the decimal point. Only four readings on the clock happen to be the same either way — :00, and nothing else in common use.
The error is at its worst in the middle of the hour. 30 minutes written as 0.30 instead of 0.50 loses 12 minutes. Over a fortnight of timesheets that is most of a shift.
Rounding, and what the law actually allows
Most employers do not pay to the exact minute. The three common policies:
- Tenth of an hour (6 minutes) — the usual choice for professional-services billing.
- Quarter hour (15 minutes) — the classic US timeclock rule, and the one the Fair Labor Standards Act explicitly permits.
- Half hour — rare, and hard to defend as neutral.
The legal point is neutrality. Rounding to the nearest quarter hour is allowed because, over time, it costs the employee and the employer about the same. A policy that only ever rounds down, or that rounds clock-ins up and clock-outs down, is not rounding — it is unpaid work, and it has lost employers a good many lawsuits. Several states, California among them, are stricter than the federal rule.
Set the rounding above to see what a policy actually costs on this particular entry; the result shows the minutes gained or lost.
Converting back
Going the other way trips people up less often but the same rule applies: 7.25 hours is 7 hours and 15 minutes, not 7 and 25. Take the whole number as hours, multiply what is left by 60.
Where decimals bite
Decimal hours do not always divide cleanly — 20 minutes is 0.333… — so a timesheet totalling many entries can drift by a cent or two depending on where rounding happens. Round the total, not each line, unless your policy says otherwise; rounding every line compounds the error.
Frequently asked questions
▸What is 7 hours 15 minutes in decimal?
7.25. Fifteen minutes is a quarter of an hour, so 15 ÷ 60 = 0.25. Writing it as 7.15 — the clock reading straight into a decimal field — underpays by 6 minutes.
▸What is 45 minutes as a decimal?
0.75 hours. The quarter-hour marks are the only ones most people remember: 15 is 0.25, 30 is 0.50, 45 is 0.75. Everything else needs the division.
▸Can my employer round my hours?
In the US, yes — federal rules permit rounding to as much as the nearest quarter hour, provided the policy is neutral and does not systematically favour the employer over time. Always rounding down is not permitted, and several states apply stricter rules than the federal one.
▸Should I round each entry or the total?
Round the total unless your policy says otherwise. Rounding every line compounds the error, and on a timesheet with twenty entries that can add up to a visible difference in pay.
▸Why does 20 minutes give 0.3333?
Because a third of an hour is not a terminating decimal. Keep the extra places through the arithmetic and round only at the end — rounding 0.33 at every step loses money over a long timesheet.
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