Business Hours Between Two Dates
Working hours between two timestamps, excluding lunch breaks, weekends and holidays.
Written and maintained by Paul Clark, Redmoon Software · Rules last verified
These calculators are for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice.
How the Business Hours Between Two Dates works
The Business Hours Between Two Dates calculator measures elapsed working time between two timestamps, counting only the hours inside your defined business day and excluding lunch breaks, weekends, and holidays. It is the right tool when "how long did this take?" should mean working hours, not wall-clock hours.
Raw elapsed time punishes work that spans nights and weekends — a ticket opened Friday at 5pm looks hours old by Monday even though nobody was working. Counting business hours aligns the measurement with when work actually happens.
Worked example
With a 9am–5pm working day, a task opened Friday at 4pm and finished Monday at 11am took just 3 business hours (one on Friday afternoon, two on Monday morning) — not the 67 calendar hours that elapsed.
Frequently asked questions
Can I set my own working hours and lunch break?
Yes. Define the start and end of your business day and an optional unpaid break, and the calculator counts only the time inside that window.
Are weekends and holidays excluded?
Yes. Saturdays, Sundays, and the public holidays of your selected country contribute zero business hours.
What is this useful for?
SLA timing, support-response measurement, billable-hour windows, and any metric that should reflect working time rather than calendar time.
Does it handle a shift that runs past midnight?
No. The working window is defined by a start and end hour within a single day, so an overnight shift cannot be expressed. For rotating or overnight patterns, the rotating shift calculator models the pattern instead.
What this calculator does not do
A limitation you know about costs far less than one you find after the deadline. These are the specific things this tool cannot work out for you.
- It counts hours inside the working window you define, deducting a fixed lunch break each full day. Shift patterns, overtime and part-day closures are not modelled.
- The window is assumed identical on every working day.
Related calculators
Business Days Between Two Dates
Count weekdays between two dates, excluding weekends and holidays.
OpenAdd Business Days to a Date
Add N business days to a starting date, skipping weekends and holidays.
OpenCustom Holiday Business Day Calculator
Bring your own holidays — exclude any list of dates from counts.
Open