Time card calculator with lunch break

This calculator subtracts one or more breaks from every shift — a 30-minute lunch, a couple of shorter breaks, or both on the same day. Each break is its own entry on the row, added with the "+ Add break" link, and every minute entered there comes straight off that day's worked time. The part most calculators skip is which breaks should actually be subtracted in the first place — that's what this page covers.

Not every break should be deducted

Under the FLSA, short rest breaks — 20 minutes or less — are treated as paid working time and generally shouldn't be subtracted from a shift at all. A bona fide meal period of 30 minutes or more, where the employee is completely relieved of duty, is the one that's typically unpaid and does get subtracted. This calculator doesn't know the difference — it subtracts whatever minutes you type into a break field, paid or not. Entering a 10-minute paid break the same way as a 30-minute unpaid lunch will quietly understate someone's hours by exactly the length of that short break.

More than one break in the same day

Every break on a row is added the same way, so a day with a lunch plus a shorter break is just a second "+ Add break" entry — the calculator sums every break on that row and subtracts the total once. There's no separate "lunch" field distinct from other breaks; that's deliberate, since the length of the break is what determines whether it should be paid or not, not the label.

If that 15-minute entry should have been a paid rest break instead of a deduction, the correct net hours for that day is 8.50 (8:30), not 8.25 — the calculator has no way to tell, so getting the paid/ unpaid call right for each entry is on whoever's filling in the row.

What this tool doesn't cover

This calculator does the subtraction correctly; it doesn't determine whether a break was required, paid, or long enough to satisfy the law where the shift happened. A few states go further than the federal FLSA baseline above:

• California requires an unpaid 30-minute meal period for any shift over 5 hours (a second one after 10 hours), and if the meal period genuinely can't be waived and isn't provided, the employer owes one extra hour of pay for that day under Labor Code Section 512. This calculator doesn't check whether a meal period was provided or add that premium — it only totals the hours entered.
• Several other states set their own minimum break lengths, timing windows, or industry-specific exceptions. None of those rules are built into this calculator; it applies the same flat subtraction everywhere.

For how overtime interacts with a day's total hours once breaks are subtracted, see the FLSA and California overtime explainer. None of this is legal advice — see the terms for the full disclaimer.