How to Fill Out a Weekly Time Card

Before the first punch: the header

Fill in the top of the card before the week starts.

• Your name as payroll has it, and your employee number if your workplace uses one.
• The workweek start day and time. Overtime under the federal rule is counted per workweek, a fixed 168-hour period that can start on any day and at any hour. The employer has to record when it begins. If you don’t know yours, ask; it decides which week a late Saturday shift falls in.
• The dates the card covers. Write the full date of each day, not just the weekday. Dates settle questions about holidays and daylight saving nights later.
• Your rate, if you want to check your gross pay against the stub.

Filling in each day, step by step

1. Write the in time when you start working. Use the time on the clock, including AM or PM, or a four-digit 24-hour time such as 0758. The guide to military time on time cards covers 24-hour clocks.
2. Record an unpaid meal break. Either write the out-and-in times (12:00 PM out, 12:30 PM in) or write the break minutes in the break column. Use one method or the other, never both for the same break.
3. Leave short rest breaks in. Under 29 CFR 785.18, rest periods of about 5 to 20 minutes are hours worked. Do not punch out for a coffee break unless your employer’s system requires it, and do not subtract it.
4. Write the out time when you stop working. If you stay late to finish a task, the extra minutes count. Fact Sheet #22 says work that was not requested but was allowed is work time.
5. Total the day in hours and minutes. Out minus in, minus the unpaid break. Borrow 60 minutes when you need to.
6. Write the decimal next to it. Divide the minutes by 60 and round to two places: 8:06 is 8.10, 7:40 is 7.67.
7. At the end of the week, add the days in hours and minutes, then convert the week total once.

A filled-in week

Here is a week filled out the way the steps describe. The workweek starts Sunday at midnight, the rate is $24.50 an hour, and Sunday was a day off.

If your card has lines at the bottom for regular and overtime hours, fill them in last. Under the federal rule, hours over 40 in the workweek are overtime at 1.5 times the regular rate. This week is 40:00 regular and 8:58 overtime (8.97 hours). At $24.50 an hour, that is $980.00 straight time plus $329.53 overtime, $1,309.53 gross.

If Monday’s lunch were written as punches instead, the line would read 7:58 AM–12:00 PM and 12:30 PM–4:34 PM, with no break minutes. The total is the same 8:06.

Some states add daily overtime or other rules on top of the federal rule. The overtime laws table lists all 50 states and DC. For the arithmetic behind each line, see how to calculate hours worked.

Breaks, missed punches and odd days

Meal breaks. A bona fide meal period, ordinarily 30 minutes or more and completely free of duties, is unpaid under 29 CFR 785.19. If you ate at your station and kept working, or were called back early, write the real times. The Department of Labor’s Fact Sheet #22 names working through lunch at a desk as a typical problem in counting hours, and the card is where it gets caught. Some states require meal or rest breaks; the break laws table covers all 50 states and DC.

A missed punch. Don’t leave it blank and don’t guess silently. Write the time you started or stopped, mark it as a corrected entry, and tell your supervisor the same day while everyone remembers. A day with an in time and no out time cannot be totaled.

Two shifts in one day. Use a second in-and-out pair on the same line. Each pair is totaled separately, then added for the day.

Days off, holidays and leave. Write 0:00 for days with no work. If your employer pays holiday, vacation or sick hours, show them on a separate line from hours worked, the way your employer’s card or payroll system asks.

Overnight shifts

A shift that starts at 10:00 PM Friday and ends at 6:30 AM Saturday goes on Friday’s line, the day it started. Write the out time as it was, 6:30 AM, and note that it ended the next day. With a 30-minute meal break, the shift is 8:00 (8.00 hours).

Two cases need a note:

• The shift crosses the start of a new workweek. With a workweek that starts at midnight between Saturday and Sunday, a Saturday night shift puts its minutes before midnight in one week and the rest in the next. The card should show where the split falls.
• The clocks change that night. On the first Sunday of November a night shift through 2:00 AM is an hour longer than its clock times; on the second Sunday of March it is an hour shorter. Write the real hours worked and add a note.

Signing, correcting and keeping the card

Signing. The federal list of required payroll records in 29 CFR 516.2 does not include a signature, but your employer may ask for one. Sign when the card is right: every day has both punches, the meal breaks match what you actually took, and the week total matches your own notes.

Correcting. Cross out a wrong entry with a single line so it can still be read, write the correct time next to it, and initial it. If a supervisor changes your card, ask to see the change.

Keeping it. Under 29 CFR 516.6, employers keep the basic time cards, with daily starting and stopping times, for at least 2 years. Fact Sheet #21 says payroll records are kept for at least 3 years. Keep your own copy too: a photo of the card or a printout, filed by week, is enough to check a pay stub months later.

For employers on fixed schedules. Under 29 CFR 516.2(c), an employer may record a fixed schedule and mark the weeks it was followed, but must record the exact hours on any day the employee worked more or less than scheduled. The guide on time records employers must keep has the full list.

If a time card and a paycheck don’t match and talking to payroll doesn’t settle it, your state labor department or the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division can investigate. This is general information, not legal advice.

Next step

Fill in your week in the time card calculator. It totals each day in minutes, splits regular and overtime hours under the federal rule or your state’s, and prints a clean weekly card or exports a CSV file. Your card is saved only on your own device.