How to use the military time card calculator
- The In and Out boxes show 24-hour placeholders such as
0800and1700, so type times the way your unit or department records them. - Four digits with no colon is fine.
0730,1745,2200and0600all parse, and so do7:30and17:45. - For an overnight shift, put the later start and the earlier end on the same row. An Out earlier than the In is read as crossing midnight.
- Put an unpaid meal in Break (minutes), or use Two shifts per day when a night is split by a long relief period.
- Choose 1 or 2 Weeks, set the Overtime rule and Hourly rate, then read the totals in hh:mm and decimal hours.
- Use Print for a signed paper copy or Download CSV for payroll.
Why time cards use the 24-hour clock
Hospitals chart in 24-hour time. So do the armed services, aviation, emergency dispatch, pharmacy, rail and most continuous manufacturing. They share one problem: work does not stop at the end of the day, so a notation that repeats twice every twenty-four hours is a hazard. Written 0700 and 1900, the two ends of a nursing shift can never be confused. Written 7:00 and 7:00 with a letter after each, they can.
The counting is straightforward. Hours run 0000 through 2359 with no reset at noon. Midnight at the start of a day is 0000, and the same instant at the end of a day is often written 2400. Noon is 1200. For any afternoon or evening time, add 12 to the hour: 1:00 PM becomes 1300, 5:30 PM becomes 1730, 11:15 PM becomes 2315. Going the other way, subtract 12 from any hour of 13 or higher. The hour between midnight and 1 AM is the one that trips people, because 12:40 AM is 0040, not 1240.
Entering times this way also removes a class of silent error. A card reading 8:00 to 4:00 is missing information no calculator can recover: it might be an eight-hour day or a twenty-hour stretch. Written 0800 to 1600, nothing is left to guess. To translate a stack of AM and PM times first, the military time converter takes one at a time and the military time chart lists all 24 hours.
Shifts that cross midnight
A 2200 to 0600 shift is eight hours, but subtracting the numbers gives a negative result, which is why hand-totaled night cards go wrong so often. Split at midnight instead: 2200 to 2400 is 2 hours and 0000 to 0600 is 6 hours, totaling 8. The calculator does this for you when the Out is earlier than the In.
The other decision is which day an overnight shift belongs to. The usual convention is to record it on the day it starts, so a Friday night shift ending Saturday morning sits on the Friday row. Be consistent across the whole card, because moving one shift across a week boundary can change which week the overtime lands in. If your employer designates a workweek that begins at a specific hour, follow that designation instead.
Worked example: a night shift week
Each night shift carries a 30-minute unpaid meal. Rate is $28.00 an hour, federal overtime rule.
| Day | In | Out | Break | Worked | Decimal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | 2200 | 0600 | 30 | 7:30 | 7.50 |
| Tue | 2200 | 0600 | 30 | 7:30 | 7.50 |
| Wed | 2200 | 0630 | 30 | 8:00 | 8.00 |
| Thu | 2200 | 0600 | 30 | 7:30 | 7.50 |
| Fri | 2200 | 0700 | 30 | 8:30 | 8.50 |
| Sat | 1800 | 2200 | 0 | 4:00 | 4.00 |
| Week | 43:00 | 43.00 |
Wednesday runs 2200 to 0630, which is 8 hours 30 minutes on the clock, less 30 minutes of meal, leaving 8 hours. Friday runs 2200 to 0700, which is 9 hours gross, less the meal, leaving 8 hours 30 minutes, or 8.50 in decimal. Saturday is a short evening call with no break and ends before midnight, so it needs no crossing at all.
Adding the decimal column: 7.5 + 7.5 + 8 + 7.5 + 8.5 + 4 = 43.00 hours. Under the federal rule, 40 are regular and 3 are overtime. Pay works out to 40 x $28.00 = $1,120.00 plus 3 x $42.00 = $126.00, for a gross of $1,246.00. Note that the overtime here comes only from the weekly total. Nothing in this week exceeds 8 hours 30 minutes in a day, so a state with a daily threshold would produce a different split. The overtime rules by state page covers which states have one.
Frequently asked questions
Can I type 0800 without a colon?
Yes. Four digits are read as hours and minutes, so 0800 is 8:00 AM and 1745 is 5:45 PM. Three digits work too, so 730 is read as 7:30 in the morning. Leading zeros are optional but worth keeping for a card someone else will read.
Is midnight 0000 or 2400?
Both notations refer to the same instant, and which one is correct depends on position. 0000 opens a day and 2400 closes the previous one. On a card, a shift that ends at midnight is clearest written as 2400, while one that begins at midnight should read 0000.
How do I enter a 2200 to 0600 shift?
Put 2200 in the In box and 0600 in the Out box on the same day row. An Out value earlier than the In is treated as the next morning, so the row returns 8:00 before breaks rather than a negative number.
What is 1730 in ordinary time?
5:30 PM. Subtract 12 from the hour once it reaches 13. The same operation turns 1300 into 1:00 PM, 2015 into 8:15 PM and 2359 into 11:59 PM.
Which day should a night shift be recorded on?
Record it on the day the shift starts unless your employer's written policy says otherwise. Keeping one convention across the whole card matters most, since shifting a single overnight shift to the following day can move hours between workweeks and change the overtime total.
Are the totals also shown in 24-hour format?
No, and they should not be. 2200 to 0600 is a length of time, not a point on the clock, so it is reported as 8:00 hours and 8.00 decimal hours. Clock notation and duration notation happen to look alike, which is another reason to convert to decimal before doing pay math.
To convert a stray total such as 7 hours 20 minutes into decimal form, use the decimal hours calculator.