Work

Working Hours Calculator

Calculate total hours worked, overtime or pending hours per day or week.

Recording hours worked has been a legal obligation for companies in Spain since 2019 (Royal Decree-Law 8/2019) and a fundamental right of workers to control their working hours and claim overtime that is not being compensated. Knowing the total hours worked each week is also essential for detecting excessive working hours.

This calculator lets you record clock-in and clock-out times for each day of the week and compare them with your contractual hours. The result shows whether you have overtime to be compensated or hours to make up to complete your shift. You can add as many days or shifts as you need, including split shifts.

Contractual hours per day

Daily hours according to contract

Work intervals

Label (day)Start timeEnd time

The calculation does not account for unrecorded intermediate breaks or public holidays. For official time recording, use your company's system or approved software.

How it works

Enter the start and end time for each working day. The calculator adds up the time for each interval and compares it with the configured contractual hours. Overtime is the time worked above the agreed shift; pending hours are what remain to complete the shift.

How worked hours are calculated

The calculation consists of subtracting the start time from the finish time and deducting unpaid breaks. The catch lies in handling sexagesimal time: hours are divided into 60 minutes, not 100, so they cannot be subtracted like ordinary decimal numbers. A shift from 09:15 to 17:45 is not 8.30 hours but 8 hours and 30 minutes, which in decimal format equals 8.5 hours. To convert minutes to decimals you divide by 60: 30 minutes is 0.5 hours and 45 minutes is 0.75. This conversion is essential when you want to multiply time worked by an hourly rate.

Worked example

A split shift from 09:00 to 14:00 and from 15:30 to 18:30. The morning stretch adds up to exactly 5 hours. The afternoon runs from 15:30 to 18:30, that is, 3 hours. The total is 8 effective hours, not counting the hour and a half lunch break, which is not working time. If the shift were a night one, from 22:00 to 06:00, the calculation detects that the finish time is earlier than the start and adds 24 hours: 06:00 + 24 = 30:00, and 30:00 − 22:00 gives the correct 8 hours.

Working time limits under Spanish law

Item	Legal limit
Maximum weekly hours	40 h (annual average)
Maximum daily hours	9 ordinary hours
Rest between working days	12 h minimum
Weekly rest	1.5 uninterrupted days
Break in shifts over 6 h	15 min
Maximum overtime	80 h per year
Annual holiday	30 calendar days

How to interpret the result

The total in hours and minutes is what you need for the time record, while the decimal equivalent is what you need for any financial calculation. Bear in mind that not all time on site counts as effective working time: lunch breaks only count if the collective agreement treats them as working time, whereas the fifteen-minute break in continuous shifts longer than six hours usually does count. If your weekly total exceeds an average of 40 hours, that excess is overtime and must be recorded as such, compensated with time off within the following four months or paid, with a legal cap of 80 hours a year.

Frequently asked questions

Yes. Add two separate intervals: one for the morning and one for the afternoon. The total will be the sum of both without counting the break.

The calculator automatically detects that the end time is earlier than the start time and adds 24 hours. For example, from 22:00 to 06:00 it will calculate 8 hours.

According to the Workers' Statute, overtime can be compensated with time off or paid financially. If paid, it cannot be less than the value of an ordinary hour. The maximum limit is 80 hours of overtime per year.

The maximum ordinary working week is 40 hours averaged over the year, which allows irregular distributions as long as that average is respected. With the new planned legislation, it will be reduced to 37.5 hours per week. The maximum ordinary working day is 9 hours, unless the collective agreement establishes a different distribution while respecting the minimum 12-hour rest between the end of one day and the start of the next. Workers under 18 have a lower limit of 8 hours a day.

Yes. Since May 2019, Royal Decree-Law 8/2019 requires all Spanish companies to record each worker's hours daily, including the specific start and finish times. The record must be kept for four years and be available to workers, their representatives and the Labour Inspectorate. The rule was created to combat unpaid overtime and non-compliance can carry fines of between €751 and €7,500. There is no mandatory format: anything from a signed sheet to a digital app is valid, as long as it is reliable and tamper-proof.

Divide your gross annual salary by your effective working hours per year. For a full-time 40-hour week, the annual count is around 1,760 hours once holidays and public holidays are deducted: 40 hours × 52 weeks is 2,080 hours, minus about 240 hours of holiday and 80 of public holidays. On a gross salary of €30,000, the hourly rate would be about €17. This calculation is useful for judging whether overtime is worth it, for pricing freelance work, or for comparing offers with different working hours.