What Are Decimal Hours?
Definition
Decimal Hours: A time written as one decimal number instead of hours and minutes. The minutes are divided by 60 and added to the hours: 8 hours 30 minutes is 8.5 hours, 7 hours 45 minutes is 7.75 hours.
Decimal hours write a time as one decimal number instead of hours and minutes. The minutes are divided by 60 and added to the hours: 8 hours 30 minutes is 8.5 hours. Time cards, payroll and overtime pay multiply the hourly rate by hours in this form; writing 8.30 means 8 hours 18 minutes, not 8 hours 30 minutes.
Where it appears in the formulas
decimal hours = hours + minutes / 60. Example: 7 hours 45 minutes is 7 + 45 / 60 = 7.75 hours. The other way, multiply the decimal part by 60: 7.75 hours has 0.75 × 60 = 45 minutes. The hours calculator gives the time between two times, and the time card calculator the total of several days, both in hours and minutes and in decimal hours.
A common mistake
Hours and minutes written side by side with a decimal point are not decimal hours. 1 hour 20 minutes is not 1.20 hours but about 1.33 hours. The difference grows when it is multiplied by an hourly rate; convert the time to decimal hours before you compute pay.
In Türkiye
Overtime pay is computed per hour. Under Article 5 of the Regulation on Overtime and Work over Contract Hours, a part shorter than half an hour counts as half an hour, and a part longer than half an hour counts as one hour. So overtime hours are usually written as multiples of 0.5. The Türkiye overtime calculator takes the hours as decimals.