Time to decimal hours converter

The rule

Decimal hours express minutes as a fraction of an hour. Divide the minutes by 60 and add the whole hours: 7:45 is 7 + 45 / 60 = 7.75. With seconds, divide those by 3,600 as well. Going back, keep the whole number as hours and multiply the part after the point by 60: 0.75 x 60 = 45 minutes.

The common mistake

A decimal point is not a colon. 7.5 hours is 7 hours 30 minutes, not 7 hours 50, and 7 hours 30 minutes should never be written as 7.30. Useful anchors: 6 minutes is 0.1 of an hour, 15 minutes is 0.25, 30 is 0.5 and 45 is 0.75.

Rounding

The main answer is rounded to two places, which is what most payroll and invoicing systems use. Some times do not convert exactly: 20 minutes is 0.3333 and so on, shown as 0.33. Multiplied by an hourly rate, the rounded figure comes out slightly lower than the exact one, so a four-place figure is shown too. In the other direction, the result is rounded to the nearest whole second.

What you can type

The time box reads h:mm, h:mm:ss or units such as 7h 45m and 465 min. Hours can go past 24, which suits weekly totals such as 37:30. The decimal box reads plain numbers with a point as the decimal mark. The chart below the tool lists every five minutes for a quick look-up without typing.