Do you often find yourself asking “How Many Hours And minutes” are between two times? Whether you’re tracking your work hours, scheduling meetings, or simply curious about time duration, our online hour calculator is the perfect tool. This user-friendly calculator accurately determines the hour difference between any two given times within a day, down to the minute. If you need the result in minutes, it provides that too, making time calculations straightforward and efficient. If you’ve ever wondered, “how many hours am I working today?”, this calculator is designed to give you the answer instantly.
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- Hours to decimal hours conversion
- How many hours?
- Number of hours in different time periods
- American vs. European time
How to Calculate Hours Between Times?
Our intuitive online tool simplifies the process of calculating the difference in hours and minutes between two specific times. To find out the duration between a start and end time, just input the beginning and end times into the calculator. The tool automatically adapts to your browser’s locale settings for time format, whether you’re in the US, UK, or elsewhere.
To use the calculator, simply enter your start and end times and click the “Calculate difference” button. The result will display the time difference in both full hours and minutes. An important feature of this calculator is its ability to handle time spans that cross midnight. For instance, if your start time is later in the day than your end time, the calculator intelligently assumes the start time is on the current day and the end time is on the following day. So, if you input a start time of 6 PM and an end time of 8 AM, it will accurately calculate the time difference from 6 PM today to 8 AM tomorrow, which is 14 hours.
This hours and minutes calculator is incredibly useful for various purposes, including tracking work hours for timesheets. For example, if you want to know, “how many hours are there between 9 am and 5:30 pm?”, just enter these times and click “Calculate”. The result will show you 8 hours and 30 minutes (or 8.5 hours in decimal format), which is equivalent to 510 minutes. The calculator correctly identifies 8 full hours within this period. Furthermore, it allows for the deduction of breaks, such as lunch breaks, from the total time. You can learn more about this feature in the lunch breaks section.
Hours to Decimal Hours Conversion
While our hours calculator conveniently displays time differences in decimal hours, understanding the conversion process is helpful. Converting hours and minutes (hh:mm) to decimal hours is a straightforward calculation. You simply divide the number of minutes by 60 to get the decimal portion and then add it to the whole number of hours. For example, 8 hours and 15 minutes is equal to 8.25 decimal hours because 15 minutes divided by 60 is 0.25. For quick conversions, you can also use our dedicated digital time converter.
How Many Hours?
Many individuals with fixed work schedules frequently ask, “how many hours am I working?” to understand their daily work duration. If you work a typical 9-to-5 job, the question “how many hours is 9 to 5?” is common. The answer is precisely eight hours. This is a standard workday for many professions.
Parents who drop off and pick up their children from school might also wonder about the length of their child’s school day. For instance, if you drop your child off at 7 AM and pick them up at 3 PM, you might ask, “how many hours is 7 AM to 3 PM?”. Again, the answer is eight hours (15 – 7 = 8).
Below are more examples illustrating how to calculate the duration between two points in time. Remember, you can use our hours calculator above to determine the time difference between any two specified times, including hours and minutes.
| Start Time – End Time | Time Between |
|---|---|
| 9 AM to 5 PM | 8:00 |
| 7 AM to 5 PM | 10:00 |
| 8 AM to 4 PM | 8:00 |
| 8 AM to 8 PM | 12:00 |
| 8 AM to 6 PM | 10:00 |
| 9 AM to 5:30 PM | 8:30 |
| 7:30 AM to 4:30 PM | 9:00 |
Working Hours with Lunch Break Excluded
When utilizing our hours calculator to calculate your work duration, you may need to subtract break times like lunch breaks to accurately determine your net working hours. For instance, a workday from 7:30 AM to 4:30 PM with a 30-minute lunch break doesn’t equate to a 9-hour workday, but rather an 8.5-hour workday. This is calculated by taking the total time between start and end (9 hours) and subtracting the 30-minute (or 0.5-hour) lunch break, resulting in 8.5 working hours. If your work involves shifts, you might have various types of breaks, not just lunch, and possibly multiple breaks throughout the day. In such cases, to calculate your total work hours excluding all breaks, simply sum up the total break time in minutes and input it into the designated field in the calculator.
The break time feature is also valuable for calculating the duration of activities with rest intervals, such as a one-hour intensive workout followed by a 15-minute break and then another hour of exercise. For more complex timesheet calculations, we recommend our advanced work hours calculator.
Number of Hours in Different Time Periods
While calculating hours within a day is frequently needed, understanding hours in larger time frames like weeks, months, and years is also often useful. These calculations are all based on the fundamental fact that a day consists of 24 hours. To find the total hours in these periods, you multiply the number of days in the period by 24.
How Many Hours in a Year?
An average calendar year contains 8,766 hours. Specifically, a common year (non-leap year) has 8,760 hours (365 days), while a leap year, which occurs every four years, has 8,784 hours (366 days). The calculations are as follows: 365 days × 24 hours/day = 8,760 hours, and 366 days × 24 hours/day = 8,784 hours.
How Many Hours in a Month?
The average number of hours in a calendar month is approximately 730.5 hours. However, because months vary in length, the actual number of hours differs each month:
- Months with 31 days (January, March, May, July, August, October, and December) have 744 hours.
- Months with 30 days (April, June, September, and November) have 720 hours.
- February has 672 hours in a common year and 696 hours in a leap year.
How Many Hours in a Week?
A week is defined as seven days. Therefore, since each day has 24 hours, a week contains exactly 168 hours. This is calculated as 7 days × 24 hours/day = 168 hours. The number of work hours in a week, however, depends on the number of workdays and the length of each workday. For example, a standard five-day workweek with 8-hour workdays totals 40 work hours. If the workday is 7 hours, a five-day workweek would be 35 working hours.
American vs. European Time
Time telling conventions differ between Europeans and Americans, both in spoken and written formats. In the United States, the 12-hour clock is commonly used, cycling through hours 1 to 12 twice a day. In contrast, Europeans generally use the 24-hour clock, ranging from 00:00 to 23:59. Consequently, Americans use “am” and “pm” to distinguish between the two halves of the day. Conversely, most Europeans would typically say “15:00 o’clock” rather than “3 pm”. Adding to the complexity for international visitors, many Europeans might also say “3 in the afternoon,” similar to the 12-hour format.
For those unfamiliar with the 24-hour format, often referred to as “military time”, the conversion is straightforward. For times after 1 PM, simply add or subtract 12 hours. For example, a meeting at 17:30 in 24-hour time would be 17:30 – 12 = 5:30 pm in 12-hour time. Conversely, if you want to schedule a meeting at 2 pm and need to write it in 24-hour format, it would be 2 + 12 = 14:00. Using the 24-hour format can simplify time calculations, especially when dealing with periods that cross from AM to PM, such as calculating work hours. For further assistance with conversions, see our 24-hour clock converter page.
It’s important to note that while similar, European time telling isn’t strictly military time. In military time, 6 pm would be expressed as 1800 and spoken as “eighteen hundred,” whereas in European civilian usage, it’s “eighteen o’clock”. Similarly, 7 am in military time is “zero seven hundred” or “oh seven hundred” (0700), while Europeans would simply say “seven”. The more precise military time communication is essential in critical situations where time accuracy is paramount. A miscommunication of even an hour or minute could have serious consequences.
Cite this calculator & page
If you’d like to cite this online calculator resource and information as provided on the page, you can use the following citation: Georgiev G.Z., “Hours Calculator”, [online] Available at: https://www.gigacalculator.com/calculators/hours-between-times-calculator.php URL [Accessed Date: 18 Feb, 2025].
