Learning how to convert decimals to minutes and minutes to decimals in Google Sheets is essential for various calculations. This skill is particularly useful in preparing payrolls, final settlements for employees, calculating rental bills, and more.

Introduction

You may have employee work hours recorded in HH:MM format (as duration). However, this format is not suitable for payroll calculations because it does not directly allow multiplication with hourly wages.

For example, suppose an employee has worked 10:30 (10 hours and 30 minutes) at a rate of $35.00 per hour. If you try to calculate their pay as:

=TIMEVALUE("10:30")*35

or

=10.30*35

Neither formula will return the correct answer.

Note: You can enter the value in A1 and use the formula =A1*35 instead.

The correct calculation should use 10.50 hours instead of 10:30 because 30 minutes is 0.5 in decimal hours.

Similarly, you may sometimes need the reverse conversion—for instance, converting 10.50 decimal hours back to 10:30.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to convert decimals to minutes and minutes to decimals in Google Sheets using simple formulas.

1. Convert Time or Duration (hh:mm) to Hours

In the following example, column B contains the start time (B2:B11), and column C contains the end time (C2:C11).

To calculate the duration, use this formula in D2 and drag it down to D11:

=C2-B2

To display the correct total, format D2:D11 as Duration: Format > Number > Duration

This prevents truncation if the total duration exceeds 24 hours.

Formula to Convert Time to Hours (Whole Number or Decimal)

=N(time_or_duration * 24)

Applying this formula in E2 (and dragging it down) will give the duration in hours (which may be a whole number or a decimal):

=N(D2*24)

2. Convert Time Duration (hh:mm) to Minutes

For shorter durations, you may want to convert time to minutes instead of hours.

Example:

• If a journey from Location A to B takes 0:35:00 (35 minutes),
• Instead of displaying 0.58 hours, you can directly convert it to 35 minutes.

Formula to Convert Time to Minutes

=N(time_or_duration*1440)

For example, if D2:D3 contains duration, use this formula in E2 and drag it down:

=N(D2*1440)

3. Convert Hours to Time (hh:mm)

If column A2:A11 contains hours (whole number or decimal), you can convert them back to time format using this formula in B2:

=A2/24

Then, drag it down to B11.

Formatting Tip

• Format B2:B11 as Time or Duration, depending on your needs.
• Use Duration if you plan to sum the values to prevent resetting after 24 hours.

4. Convert Minutes to Time (hh:mm)

If A2:A4 contains minutes, convert them to time using:

=A2/1440

Format B2:B4 as Time or Duration.

5. Convert Hours to Minutes

To convert hours to minutes, multiply by 60.

Example:

• An employee worked 1.5 hours.
• To convert it to minutes:

=A1*60 // returns 90 minutes

If A1 contains 24 (hours), the result will be 1440 minutes (1 full day).

6. Convert Minutes to Hours

To convert minutes to hours, divide by 60.

Example:

If A1 contains 90 minutes, the following formula returns 1.5 hours:

=A1/60

For A1 = 1440 (1 full day in minutes), the result will be 24 hours.

7. Convert Decimal Minutes to Minutes and Seconds

If you have decimal minutes (e.g., 5.5 minutes), split it into minutes and seconds:

=INT(A1)  // Returns the minutes
=ROUND((A1 - INT(A1)) * 60, 0)  // Returns the seconds

For A1 = 5.5, this will return 5 minutes 30 seconds.

8. Convert Minutes and Seconds to Decimal Minutes

If:

• A2 contains minutes
• B2 contains seconds

You can convert them to decimal minutes using:

=A2+(B2/60)

Example:

Resources

Here are related tutorials you may find useful:

• Round, Round Up, and Round Down Hours, Minutes, and Seconds in Google Sheets
• Converting Time Duration to Day, Hour, and Minute in Google Sheets
• How to Add Hours, Minutes, Seconds to Time in Google Sheets
• How to Increment Time by Minutes or Hours in Google Sheets
• How to Automate Overtime Calculation in Google Sheets
• How to Convert Military Time to Standard Time in Google Sheets
• Elapsed Days and Time Between Two Dates in Google Sheets
• How to Format Time to Milliseconds in Google Sheets
• How to Increment DateTime by One Hour in Google Sheets (Array Formula)
• How to Extract Time from DateTime in Google Sheets: 3 Methods