What is decimal time?

Decimal time expresses minutes as a fraction of an hour rather than out of 60. So 1 hour 30 minutes becomes 1.5 hours, and 1 hour 15 minutes becomes 1.25 hours. Payroll and billing systems usually need decimal hours to multiply by an hourly rate.

How do I convert minutes to decimal?

Divide the minutes by 60. So 30 minutes is 30 divided by 60, which is 0.5, and 45 minutes is 0.75. Add that to the whole hours. This converter does it both ways, so you can also turn decimal hours back into hours and minutes.

Why does payroll use decimal hours?

Because pay is an hourly rate times hours worked, and you cannot multiply cleanly by minutes out of 60. Converting 7 hours 30 minutes to 7.5 hours lets you multiply directly by the rate. Getting this wrong is a common cause of small payroll errors.

Decimal Time Converter

This tool converts time between two formats: hours and minutes, and decimal hours. Timesheets, payroll and invoicing usually need hours worked expressed as a decimal, because you cannot multiply an hourly rate by minutes out of 60, only by a decimal fraction of an hour. The converter works both ways at once. In the first section, you enter hours and minutes worked, for example 7 hours and 30 minutes, and it instantly returns the equivalent decimal hours, such as 7.5. In the second section, you enter a decimal figure, such as 2.75, and it converts that back into hours and minutes, such as 2 hours 45 minutes. Both results update live as you type, so you can check figures as fast as you can enter them. Underneath, a reference table shows the decimal equivalent of common minute values such as 15, 20, 30, 40 and 45 minutes, which is handy when you are rounding timesheets by hand. Use this whenever you need to turn a written timesheet or job card into decimal hours for payroll software, invoicing, or billing a client by the hour, or when you need to read a decimal figure from a system and understand it as a clock time. It removes the manual division and multiplication by 60 that causes small but frustrating payroll and billing errors.

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Hours and minutes to decimal

Hours

Minutes

7.5

decimal hours

Decimal to hours and minutes

Decimal hours

2 h 45 m

hours and minutes

How decimal time works

An hour has 60 minutes, but decimal time treats minutes as a fraction of an hour. To convert minutes to decimal, divide by 60. So 15 minutes is 0.25, 30 minutes is 0.5, and 45 minutes is 0.75. To go the other way, multiply the decimal part by 60 to get the minutes.

Common conversions

Minutes	Decimal
15	0.25
20	0.33
30	0.50
40	0.67
45	0.75

Related calculators

Hours Calculator: add up hours worked.
Work Hours Calculator: timesheet totals.
Time Calculator: add and subtract time.
Time Duration Calculator: time between two points.

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