7pm to 7am is 12 hours. That’s the full span of the classic night shift — the “7-to-7” worked by nurses, security guards, warehouse pickers, carers and hotel night staff everywhere. It’s the shift that ends with you squinting into the morning sun on the drive home while the rest of the world is just waking up.
But the number on the clock and the number on your paycheck are rarely the same. Take out an unpaid meal break and that 12-hour shift usually pays 11.5 hours. Stack four of them into a single week and you’re into overtime. So here’s the full picture — the hours, the breaks, the pay, and what the patterns night workers actually work add up to across a week.
The quick answer
- On the clock: 12 hours (720 minutes, 12.00 in decimal hours)
- Paid, with a 30-minute unpaid break: 11.5 hours
- Paid, with a 1-hour unpaid break: 11 hours
- Paid, if your break is paid: the full 12 hours
Counting across midnight is where people trip up — usually at 3am, squinting at a clock in the break room. Do it in two chunks and it never fails: from 7pm to midnight is 5 hours. From midnight to 7am is 7 hours. 5 + 7 = 12 hours.
Or flip it around: treat the finish as next-day time. Keep counting past 24:00 and 7am the next morning becomes “31:00” (24 + 7 = 31). Then 31 − 19 (7pm in 24-hour time) = 12. Different route, same answer.
Real shifts, of course, rarely start on the hour. If yours begins at 6:45pm or ends at 7:15am, the Work Hours Calculator does the counting in seconds, and the Overnight Shift Calculator is built specifically for shifts that cross midnight.
Your paid hours depend on your break
Almost nobody gets paid for the full 12. Meal breaks on nights are usually unpaid — that 3am sandwich in the break room comes off your hours in most workplaces. What matters is whether your break is paid or unpaid, and how long it runs:
| Break on a 7pm–7am shift | Paid hours | In decimal |
|---|---|---|
| No break taken | 12 hours | 12.00 |
| 30-minute paid break | 12 hours | 12.00 |
| 30-minute unpaid break | 11 hours 30 minutes | 11.50 |
| 1-hour unpaid break | 11 hours | 11.00 |
Short rest breaks are a different story. Ten or twenty minutes for a coffee is normally paid and doesn’t come off your hours — it’s the longer meal break that gets deducted. Not sure which kind yours is? Your last payslip will tell you: if a 7-to-7 shows up as 11.5 hours, your meal break is unpaid.
What a 7-to-7 shift pays: a worked example
Say you earn $18 an hour and take a 30-minute unpaid break.
- Paid hours: 11.5
- 11.5 × $18 = $207.00 for the shift
Now add a night-shift differential. Many employers pay a flat extra amount for nights — say $1.50 an hour on top:
- Night rate: $18 + $1.50 = $19.50
- 11.5 × $19.50 = $224.25 for the shift
- That’s $17.25 more per shift than the day rate — over a month of 14 night shifts, the differential alone adds up to $241.50.
Differentials are all over the place, though. Some employers pay a percentage (commonly 10–15%). Some pay a flat amount. Some only pay it for the core night hours — say 10pm to 6am — rather than the whole shift. The Night Shift Calculator lets you test your own rate and differential against your actual hours.
Weekly totals for common 7-to-7 patterns
Hardly anyone works five of these in a row. Most 7-to-7 workers run rotating patterns of three and four shifts a week. Here’s what those patterns actually mean in paid hours and gross pay — still at $18 an hour, still with a 30-minute unpaid break each shift, and using the standard rule of overtime at 1.5× after 40 paid hours in a week:
| Pattern | Hours on the clock | Paid hours | Overtime hours | Gross weekly pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 shifts (e.g. Mon–Wed nights) | 36 | 34.5 | 0 | $621.00 |
| 4 shifts | 48 | 46 | 6 | $882.00 |
| 5 shifts | 60 | 57.5 | 17.5 | $1,192.50 |
Here’s how the 4-shift week is built: 46 paid hours = 40 regular hours × $18 ($720) + 6 overtime hours × $27 ($162) = $882.
A few things jump out of that table:
- A 3×12 pattern is 36 hours on the clock and only 34.5 paid hours. That’s why so many hospitals treat three 12s as a full-time schedule even though it lands under 40 paid hours. The flip side: no overtime at all in a 3-shift week.
- The classic rotating pattern alternates 3-shift and 4-shift weeks. Averaged out, that’s 42 hours a week on the clock (40.25 paid). But US federal overtime law doesn’t care about averages — it looks at each workweek separately, so the 4-shift week earns overtime and the 3-shift week doesn’t.
- Healthcare workers may be on an “8/80” arrangement instead. Some hospitals and care facilities use a 14-day pay period where overtime is paid after 8 hours in a day and after 80 hours in the 14 days. If your payslip never matches the weekly math above, ask payroll whether you’re on 8/80.
To run your own pattern — different rate, different break, a differential — the Weekly Hours Calculator totals a full week, and the Overtime Calculator splits regular and overtime pay for you.
Other common night shifts, same method
The add-24 trick works for every overnight shift, not just the 7-to-7. These are the ones people ask about most:
| Shift | Total hours | Paid with a 30-min unpaid break |
|---|---|---|
| 6pm to 6am | 12 hours | 11.5 hours |
| 7pm to 7am | 12 hours | 11.5 hours |
| 7pm to 3am | 8 hours | 7.5 hours |
| 10pm to 6am | 8 hours | 7.5 hours |
| 11pm to 7am | 8 hours | 7.5 hours |
| 6pm to 2am | 8 hours | 7.5 hours |
See the split? The 12-hour shifts belong mostly to hospitals and care work, while 8-hour nights are the norm in security, hospitality and manufacturing. And in every row, the gap between clock hours and paid hours is the same thing: your unpaid break. Same maths, every shift.
Frequently asked questions
Is 7pm to 7am really 12 hours, or does daylight saving change it?
Almost always 12 hours. The exception is the two daylight-saving nights a year in places that observe it: on the spring-forward night the shift is genuinely 11 hours long, and on the fall-back night it’s 13. Most employers pay the hours actually worked, so check your payslip on those two weekends.
Do I get overtime for a 12-hour shift?
Not under US federal law just because the shift is long — federal overtime is based on the week (over 40 hours), not the day. Some states, notably California, do require daily overtime after 8 hours in a day, and some employers and union contracts pay daily overtime or a 12-hour-shift premium voluntarily. Your weekly overtime is much more predictable: in a 4-shift week, you’re over 40 paid hours.
How many 7-to-7 shifts is full time?
Three shifts a week (36 hours on the clock) counts as full time in most hospitals and care settings, partly because the work is intense and partly because benefits eligibility usually starts at 30–36 hours. Four shifts (48 on the clock) is full time plus regular overtime.
Why does my payslip show 11.5 hours for a 12-hour shift?
Because your meal break is unpaid. 12 − 0.5 = 11.5 paid hours. It’s the single most common reason a night-shift payslip looks “short,” and it’s usually correct — but if your break is meant to be paid, or you regularly work through it, that’s worth raising with payroll, because a break you work through should generally be paid time.
What’s the easiest way to check a different night shift?
Use the same method: count to midnight, then from midnight to your finish time, and add the two numbers together — then subtract any unpaid break. Or skip the mental maths and put your start, finish and break into the Overnight Shift Calculator.
Night shifts already cost you enough sleep — they shouldn’t cost you paid hours too. Run your last roster through the calculators linked above and make sure the numbers on your payslip are the numbers you actually worked.