Unpaid Lunch Breaks on a Timesheet

Taking lunch off the day

Work out the minutes between clocking in and clocking out, then subtract the lunch. For a day from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm with a 30-minute unpaid lunch: 8:00 am is 480 minutes after midnight and 4:30 pm is 990, so 990 − 480 = 510 minutes on the clock. Take off the lunch and 510 − 30 = 480 minutes, which is 8 hours, or 8.00 on a timesheet.

The calculator with an unpaid break field does the same subtraction for one shift and shows the result in decimal hours.

When to clock back in from lunch

Add the length of the lunch to the time you clocked out. If the minutes go past 59, carry an hour: 11:52 plus 45 minutes is 11 hours 97 minutes, and 97 minutes is 1 hour 37 minutes, so the time to clock back in is 12:37.

Which breaks are paid under federal rules

The U.S. Department of Labor's page on breaks and meal periods states that "Federal law does not require lunch or coffee breaks." When breaks are given, federal rules treat the two kinds differently:

• Short rest breaks. Under 29 CFR 785.18, rest periods "running from 5 minutes to about 20 minutes" "must be counted as hours worked", so they do not come off the timesheet.
• Meal periods. The Department of Labor describes meal periods as "typically lasting at least 30 minutes" and says they "are not work time and are not compensable."

For a meal period to be unpaid, 29 CFR 785.19 requires the employee to be "completely relieved from duty for the purposes of eating regular meals." If the employee has to perform duties while eating, active or inactive, the regulation does not treat the time as a meal period. The employee does not have to be allowed to leave the premises, as long as they are otherwise completely freed from duties. For rules in your state, the Department of Labor's breaks page links to state labor offices.

Two ways to record lunch

Some timekeeping takes four punches a day: in, out for lunch, back from lunch, and out. Others take two punches and deduct a set lunch. When the lunch lasts exactly as long as the deduction, both give the same hours worked. Four punches of 8:00 am to 12:00 pm and 12:30 pm to 4:30 pm are 240 + 240 = 480 minutes; two punches of 8:00 am to 4:30 pm less 30 minutes are also 480. If lunch runs longer than the deduction, only the four-punch record shows it.

Once each day's hours are known, totalling a full week of shifts takes the same approach. To see a day's minutes as a fraction of an hour, turn the minutes into decimal hours, and to see what a time clock's rounding rules do to a shift, use the payroll page.