Time Card Calculator

In 2026, a payroll administrator at a 40-employee logistics firm in New Jersey still reconciles paper time cards every Friday at 5pm before submitting to ADP for Monday payroll. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (Public Law 75-718) set the 40-hour week as the threshold for time-and-a-half overtime — and the clock-in-clock-out card remains the most legally defensible record of when an hourly employee actually worked.

The first commercial time clock was patented by Willard Bundy in Auburn, New York in 1888. Bundy Manufacturing — later merged into International Time Recording Company, which itself became IBM in 1924 — sold mechanical card punches to factories through the early 20th century. The amber kraft-paper card with perforated edge holes (so the supervisor could file a stack on a metal spike) became visual shorthand for "hourly work." The widget on this page mirrors that physical artefact deliberately.

FLSA section 207(a) requires non-exempt employees to receive 1.5× their regular rate for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. A workweek is defined in 29 CFR 778.105 as "a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours — seven consecutive 24-hour periods." It need not align with the calendar week. The employer must record start time, end time, hours worked each day, and total hours worked each week per 29 CFR 516.2. The records must be kept for at least 3 years (payroll) or 2 years (the underlying time card).

Daily-overtime states layer additional rules. California Labor Code section 510 requires 1.5× past 8 hrs/day and 2.0× past 12 hrs/day, with a separate threshold of 1.5× past 6 hours on the 7th consecutive workday. Alaska, Nevada, Colorado, and Puerto Rico have similar daily-OT rules. Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, and most other states follow federal FLSA only (40-hour weekly threshold). The federal rule is the floor; states can be stricter, never weaker.

Lunch break treatment is governed by 29 CFR 785.18 and 785.19. Short rest breaks of 5-20 minutes "promote efficiency" and must be paid. Meal periods of 30+ minutes during which the employee is fully relieved of duties may be unpaid — but if the employee is required to remain at their post (receptionist eating at desk, security guard monitoring), it's working time. The 30-minute default in this calculator reflects the most common deduction.

Rounding policies are another DOL enforcement focus. The 7-minute rule (1-7 min round down, 8-14 round up) is permissible if applied neutrally — DOL Field Assistance Bulletin 2020-7 reiterated that biased rounding (always rounding down clock-outs but up on clock-ins) is a violation. This calculator does no rounding — every minute is counted — which is the safest practice for audit defence.

Alternative work-week schedules — the 4x10 (four ten-hour days), the 9/80 (eight 9-hour days plus one 8-hour day per two weeks, with every-other Friday off), and the 3x12 (three twelve-hour days, common in healthcare) — all fit within the 40-hour weekly cap without triggering federal OT. California requires Alternative Work Week Schedules to be ratified by a 2/3 secret-ballot vote of the affected work unit per Labor Code 511. Outside California, employers may unilaterally implement these schedules with reasonable notice.