Time card template: free printable weekly, two-week and job code cards

This time card template page gives you the cards first. Template 1 is a weekly time card with four punches a day, Template 2 covers a two-week (biweekly) pay period, and Template 3 splits hours by job code or department for employees who work more than one role. Each copies as plain text, so it pastes cleanly into Google Docs, Word or a spreadsheet. If you want paper today, the printable time card below prints on its own, one card per sheet. After the templates you will find how to fill in an employee time card, which breaks to deduct, a worked example that totals a week with overtime, rounding rules, signatures, corrections and how long to keep the cards.

Time card templates to copy

Replace the [bracketed] items in each time card template with your details. Write times with a.m. or p.m., or use 24-hour time throughout, but do not mix the two on one card.

Printable time card (weekly)

This is Template 1 laid out as a table for paper. Press the button, or use your browser’s Print command, and only the card prints: black lines on white, landscape, on US letter paper. Everything else on the page is hidden when you print. Print a stack, keep them by the register or back door, and hand one to each employee at the start of the workweek.

If you build your own printable version, the trick is a small print stylesheet. Inside an @media print rule, hide every element on the page, show only the card, switch the colors to black on white, and give the table cells solid borders so employees have lines to write on. A landscape page leaves room for eight columns at a readable size.

How to fill in an employee time card

An employee time card is the record of when someone actually worked, not when they were scheduled. Fill it in as the day happens, not from memory on Friday.

1. Fill in the header once. Employee name, ID, position, the hourly rate and the dates of the workweek. Your workweek is a fixed seven-day period, such as Sunday 12:00 a.m. to Saturday 11:59 p.m., and it should match what payroll and your handbook use.
2. Punch in when work starts. Write the time the employee begins working, including setup, opening tasks or putting on required protective gear. If someone arrives early and simply waits without working, that time does not have to be recorded as work.
3. Punch out and in for the meal break. Lunch out is when the unpaid meal break starts, lunch in is when work resumes. If there is no unpaid break, leave both blank.
4. Punch out when work ends. Write the time the last task ends, including closing duties after the store locks.
5. Total each day. Hours worked = (lunch out − time in) + (time out − lunch in). Write it in hours and minutes, then convert to decimal for payroll.
6. Total the week and split overtime. Add the days. Hours up to 40 are regular; hours over 40 in the workweek are overtime at 1.5× for non-exempt employees under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
7. Record time off separately. PTO, holiday and sick hours are paid but are not hours worked, so they go on their own line and do not count toward the 40.

For a weekly time card, that is the whole job. For a two-week card, do steps 5 and 6 for week 1 and week 2 separately. For a job code card, write a new line each time the employee switches jobs, then total by code and combine the codes for overtime. When rates differ between jobs, the overtime premium uses a weighted average regular rate; our guide on how to calculate overtime with two pay rates walks through that math.

Lunch breaks vs. paid rest breaks

The most common time card mistake is deducting the wrong break. The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division draws the line this way under the FLSA:

• Rest breaks are paid. Short breaks, usually 20 minutes or less, count as hours worked. Do not clock out for them, and do not subtract them on the card.
• Bona fide meal periods can be unpaid. A meal break of typically 30 minutes or more does not have to be paid, but only if the employee is completely relieved of duty. A cashier who eats at the counter while watching the register is working.
• Federal law does not require breaks. Some states do, including California, Washington, Oregon and Colorado. Our time card calculator guide summarizes state meal and rest break rules, and you should confirm yours with your state labor department.

That is why the templates have only one pair of break punches. Lunch out and lunch in mark the unpaid meal; a 10-minute rest break never appears on the card because the clock keeps running.

How to total hours on a time card: worked example

Maya Torres works the front counter at Northfield Coffee in Austin, Texas, at $17.50 an hour. Her workweek runs Sunday, October 25, through Saturday, October 31, 2026. She takes a 30-minute unpaid lunch each shift and two paid 10-minute breaks that are not on the card. Here is her card filled in. The times are illustrative.

Take Monday line by line. Morning: 6:55 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. is 4 hours 5 minutes. Afternoon: 11:30 a.m. to 3:10 p.m. is 3 hours 40 minutes. Together that is 7 hours 45 minutes, or 7.75 hours. Adding the five days gives 40 hours 33 minutes, and 33 ÷ 60 = 0.55, so the week is 40.55 hours.

• Regular pay: 40 hours × $17.50 = $700.00.
• Overtime rate: $17.50 × 1.5 = $26.25 an hour.
• Overtime pay: 0.55 hours × $26.25 = $14.44 (exactly $14.4375).
• Gross pay for the week: $700.00 + $14.44 = $714.44 before taxes.

No single day reached overtime. A few minutes early or late each day added up to 33 minutes at time and a half, which is exactly the kind of overtime that gets missed when cards are totaled by eye. To check a card like this, enter the punches in our time card calculator, which totals a week with unpaid lunches and overtime. To convert a single figure such as 8:10 into 8.17, use the hours to decimal calculator. Do not read 8:10 as 8.10 hours; that underpays 4 minutes a day.

Rounding punch times on a time card

You may record exact minutes, as above, or round. The federal regulation at 29 CFR 785.48 accepts the long-standing practice of recording start and stop times to the nearest 5 minutes, tenth of an hour or quarter hour, as long as rounding averages out so that, over time, employees are paid for all the time they actually worked.

A neutral quarter-hour rule rounds both ways: 1 to 7 minutes rounds down, 8 to 14 minutes rounds up. Applied to all four of Maya’s daily punches, 6:50 becomes 6:45, 7:02 becomes 7:00, 3:20 becomes 3:15 and 4:20 becomes 4:15. Her rounded week is 40.50 hours instead of 40.55, and gross pay is $713.13 instead of $714.44. In another week the same rule will round in her favor. A rule that always rounds clock-ins later and clock-outs earlier fails the test.

Two practical points. First, pick one method, write it in your handbook and apply it to everyone. Second, rounding is not the same as a grace period for lateness; our tardiness policy guide explains the difference. The safest approach for a paper card is to write the exact time and let the math, not the pen, do any rounding.

Employee and manager signatures, and corrections

No federal rule requires a signature on a time card. The Department of Labor says any timekeeping method is acceptable, including having employees write their own times, as long as the record is complete and accurate. Signatures are still worth collecting because they show that both sides agreed the hours were right.

• Employee signature. The employee certifies that the card is a true and complete record of all hours worked, including work before or after the shift. This is the moment to catch off-the-clock work.
• Manager signature. The manager confirms they reviewed the card, checked it against the schedule and approved any overtime. Approval rules cannot reduce pay: overtime that was worked must be paid even if it was not approved, though you can discipline the employee for breaking the rule.
• Corrections. Cross out a wrong entry with one line so it stays readable, write the correct time next to it, note the reason (for example, “forgot to punch back in from lunch”) and have both people initial the change. Do not erase, overwrite or use correction fluid.
• Missed punches. Ask employees to report a missed punch within a set time, such as 24 hours, and record the actual time worked. Never fill in the scheduled time instead of what happened.

Some states add their own rules on pay records and wage statements, so check with your state labor department. If you are setting up a policy for missed punches and late arrivals, our attendance policy template includes timekeeping language you can adapt.

How long to keep time cards

The Department of Labor’s FLSA recordkeeping rules set the federal minimums:

• Time cards: at least two years. Time cards, work schedules and other records on which wage computations are based must be kept for two years.
• Payroll records: at least three years. This covers the hours, rates and wages paid for each employee.
• What the records must show. For each non-exempt employee, hours worked each day and each workweek, the time and day the workweek begins, the regular rate, straight-time and overtime earnings, and total wages for each pay period.

State rules can be longer. New York, for example, requires employers to keep payroll records showing hours worked and rates of pay for six years under its Labor Law. A simple habit works: file each pay period’s signed cards together, keep them for the longest period any rule that applies to you requires, and store them where they can be produced on request. Paper fades, gets coffee on it and goes missing, which is one reason many businesses move to digital records. Our guide to how to process payroll shows where approved hours go next.

Time card vs. timesheet

The two words are often used as if they mean the same thing, but they do different jobs.

A printable time card is the raw record; a timesheet summarizes it for payroll. If you need the summary sheet, use our weekly and biweekly timesheet template, and read what a timesheet is for how the two fit together. When you are ready to drop paper altogether, a time clock app records the punches and builds the summary for you.

Frequently asked questions