Military time is generally used to describe the modified 24-hour timekeeping used by the military and government organizations in countries where standard AM/PM time is used by civilians. An example is “O nine hundred thirty hours” to communicate 9:30 AM in standard time. Minutes in the communication of military time are different when notating the amount of time that has elapsed or passed. An example where military time minutes are needed for calculating time is for payroll. When determining the amount of time you may have worked in more detail than a rounded hour, you may have to report the time incrementally based on minutes. When notating this number in military time you will need to understand how military time minutes are calculated.
What Are Military Minutes?
The term “military minutes” is identical to decimal minutes. Both military minutes and decimal minutes can be found by dividing the number of minutes by 60 (the number of minutes in an hour.) A simple example would be a scenario where you had worked 35 minutes of an hour. To determine how many military minutes were equal to 35 minutes you would divide 60 by 35 (60 ÷ 35 = 0.58). This means you had worked 0.58 military minutes.
This can get quite confusing. When notating the actual moment in time, you simply place the minutes after the hours in military time. For example, 12:05 PM would be “1205” in military time. However if you were to put down that you worked twelve hours and five minutes in military time minutes in decimals, you would notate 12.08 on your timesheet.
But, Why are Military Minutes Used this Way?
Because the decimal is simply a number to represent what fraction of an hour you are notating, or in this case, the fraction of an hour you worked.
Let us look at a few more examples:
- If you worked 4 hours and 15 minutes, you would notate military minutes as 4.25. Because you worked .25 of an hour.
- If you worked 8 hours and 40 minutes, you would notate military minutes as 8.67. Again, because you worked .67 of an hour.
Luckily there is a trick to this to make it easy. To make this calculation yourself you can refer to the table below for a quick conversion of standard minutes to military minutes. Or you could just do the math yourself.
To do the conversion all you must do is divide the amount of minutes by 60. To take the example above of 8 hours and 40 minutes: 40 minutes / 60 = 0.67. Next, you add the hours to the minutes 8 + 0.67 = 8.67.
Military Time Minutes Conversion Chart
The military time minutes conversion chart below is an ultra-fast tool for this type of calculation.
| Standard Minutes | Military Time Minutes |
| 0 | 0 |
| 1 | 0.02 |
| 2 | 0.03 |
| 3 | 0.05 |
| 4 | 0.07 |
| 5 | 0.08 |
| 6 | 0.1 |
| 7 | 0.11 |
| 8 | 0.13 |
| 9 | 0.15 |
| 10 | 0.17 |
| 11 | 0.18 |
| 12 | 0.2 |
| 13 | 0.21 |
| 14 | 0.23 |
| 15 | 0.25 |
| 16 | 0.27 |
| 17 | 0.28 |
| 18 | 0.3 |
| 19 | 0.31 |
| 20 | 0.33 |
| 21 | 0.35 |
| 22 | 0.37 |
| 23 | 0.38 |
| 24 | 0.4 |
| 25 | 0.41 |
| 26 | 0.43 |
| 27 | 0.45 |
| 28 | 0.47 |
| 29 | 0.48 |
| 30 | 0.5 |
| 31 | 0.51 |
| 32 | 0.53 |
| 33 | 0.55 |
| 34 | 0.57 |
| 35 | 0.58 |
| 36 | 0.6 |
| 37 | 0.61 |
| 38 | 0.63 |
| 39 | 0.65 |
| 40 | 0.67 |
| 41 | 0.68 |
| 42 | 0.7 |
| 43 | 0.71 |
| 44 | 0.73 |
| 45 | 0.75 |
| 46 | 0.77 |
| 47 | 0.78 |
| 48 | 0.8 |
| 49 | 0.81 |
| 50 | 0.83 |
| 51 | 0.85 |
| 52 | 0.87 |
| 53 | 0.88 |
| 54 | 0.9 |
| 55 | 0.91 |
| 56 | 0.93 |
| 57 | 0.95 |
| 58 | 0.96 |
| 59 | 0.98 |
| 60 | 1 |
Military Time Minutes for Payroll
If you are working with payroll on a regular basis. We encourage you to utilize a pre-made conversion chart PDF that is printer-friendly. Use this reference chart to learn how to calculate military time minutes for payroll . Get the printable military time minutes conversion chart.
Important Notes
Often times precision is not integral to these calculations. Employers and other services likely rely on some type of rounding for simplicity. For example, an employer may record in quarter-hour (.25) increments. In this example, if you need to notate 11 minutes you would round up to .25.