Time Card Calculator with Lunch Break

Time card math that gets lunch right

Most disputes on hourly paychecks trace to one line: the lunch deduction. An 8-to-5 shift is nine clock hours but 8.5 paid hours with a 30-minute unpaid lunch, and over a week that half hour is 2.5 hours, a full quarter-day of pay. This calculator subtracts the break, splits regular from overtime at your threshold, and prices OT at time-and-a-half automatically.

Time and a half, actually computed

Overtime pays 1.5× your rate for hours past the weekly threshold (40 federally). At $22/hour, OT hours pay $33. The calculator shows the split and the premium, the extra half-rate, separately, because that's the number that tells you whether extra shifts are worth it. Ten OT hours at $22 base is $330 of pay, $110 of which is the overtime bonus.

Unpaid lunch rules, briefly

Federal law doesn't require lunch breaks, but if a break of 30+ minutes is truly duty-free, it can be unpaid. Short breaks (5–20 min) must be paid. If you work through an "unpaid" lunch, answering phones, watching a counter, that time is legally payable. If your time cards auto-deduct lunch you didn't take, that's wage theft with a paper trail.

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Freelancing instead of W-2? Convert with the day rate to hourly calculator and estimate taxes with the 1099 tax calculator. Billing clients by the hour? Track value with the billable hours calculator and send the bill with the free invoice generator.

How hours and overtime are calculated

Split shifts and multiple breaks

A single lunch deduction covers most schedules, but split shifts complicate the math. If an employee works 6:00–10:00, takes 30 minutes, resumes 10:30–14:00, takes another 15 minutes, then finishes 14:15–18:00, gross hours are 11.75 before any deduction. Subtract only the unpaid portions. If both breaks are unpaid, net hours drop to 11.00. If the morning break is paid and only the 15-minute afternoon break is unpaid, net is 11.50. Tracking which breaks are paid vs. unpaid is a payroll obligation, not an optional refinement. The FLSA requires records of all deductions; misclassifying a paid break as unpaid is a wage theft violation subject to back pay plus an equal amount in liquidated damages.

Some states impose mandatory paid rest periods. California requires a paid 10-minute rest for every four hours worked. Those 10 minutes never reduce the net hours in a time card calculation - they stay inside gross pay. Conflating a mandatory paid rest with an unpaid meal period is among the most common payroll audit findings.

Rounding practices and their legal limits

Many employers round punch times to the nearest 5, 6, or 15 minutes. The FLSA permits rounding only when it is neutral over time - meaning the rounding must not systematically favor the employer. A 7-minute rule (round down if under 7:30, round up if 7:30 or more) satisfies this test. A policy that always rounds clock-out times down does not. Courts have awarded collective back pay exceeding $500,000 in cases where rounding consistently shaved fractions from daily totals. If a worker clocks out at 17:07 under a nearest-15 policy, the recorded time is 17:00, costing 7 minutes. Across 250 workdays that is 29.2 hours - roughly $570 at a $19.50 hourly rate.

What this calculator does not cover

The tool computes gross hours, overtime at 1.5×, and net pay from a single rate. It does not handle shift differentials, blended rates for employees working multiple positions at different wages, or prevailing wage requirements under the Davis-Bacon Act (applicable to federal construction contracts above $2,000). It also omits employer-side costs: FICA at 7.65%, FUTA at up to 6% on the first $7,000, and state unemployment taxes. For contractors billing clients rather than paying employees, the billable hours calculator handles markup and project totals. For the self-employed calculating quarterly obligations, the 1099 tax calculator covers self-employment tax at 15.3% on net earnings up to $176,100 (2025 threshold).