How to Subtract Lunch from Work Hours
If you are an hourly employee, federal and state labor laws usually dictate how meal breaks are handled on your timesheet. In most cases, a "bona fide meal period" of 30 minutes or more is completely unpaid and must be deducted from your total hours worked.
Example Calculation
You clock in at 8:15 AM and clock out at 5:00 PM. You took a 45-minute unpaid lunch break.
- Hours between 8:15 AM and 5:00 PM = 8 hours, 45 minutes
- Subtract the 45-minute lunch break
- Total paid time = 8 hours, 0 minutes
Do I get paid for 15-minute breaks?
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), short breaks (usually defined as 20 minutes or less) are considered compensable work hours. This means if you take a 15-minute coffee break or smoke break, you should not deduct it from this calculator. You only deduct meal periods (typically 30-60 minutes) where you are completely relieved from duty.
Why do we need decimal hours?
If your total paid time comes out to 7 hours and 15 minutes, you cannot multiply your hourly rate by 7.15. Time must be converted to a decimal format where 1 hour equals 1.0. Because 15 minutes is a quarter of an hour, it becomes 0.25 in decimal time. Therefore, your payroll hours would be 7.25. Our calculator handles this conversion for you automatically!