Free 12-hour shift schedule templates for 24/7 teams

A 12-hour shift schedule template lays out which crew works days, which works nights and who is off, so a plant, hospital unit, 911 center or security team is covered around the clock. This page is for US operations managers, nurse managers and owners who run 24/7 or 24/5 coverage. Below are seven free templates: the four 12-hour rotations people search for most (Pitman 2-2-3, DuPont, 4-on-4-off and 7-on-7-off), a two-week nurse schedule for three 12s a week, a shift pattern template that builds any rotation you type, and a rotating 8-hour three-shift schedule for teams that are not on 12s. Each Excel file fills in the calendar from a start date and a pattern, counts how many crews are on each shift, and shows each crew’s hours and FLSA overtime for every workweek.

Which 12-hour rotating schedule fits your team?

All four-crew 12-hour rotations average 42 hours a week, because four crews share 168 hours of coverage per position. What differs is how those hours fall into weeks, how long people stay on, and how long their breaks are.

Overtime figures assume a 12-hour paid shift (8 hours for the last row), a Monday-to-Sunday workweek and the crew offsets in our templates, under the federal 40-hour rule only. Your numbers change with your workweek start, your unpaid meal breaks and state law, which is why every template recalculates them.

How overtime works on 12-hour shifts

Federal law counts overtime by the workweek: a fixed, recurring 168-hour period that can start on any day and at any hour. Hours cannot be averaged across two weeks. That is why rotations that average 42 hours still owe overtime in their long weeks, and why the same rotation can cost more or less depending on where the workweek starts.

The Pitman pattern shows it clearly. Here is the same 14-day cycle measured against different workweek start days:

The difference is 12 overtime hours per person every two weeks, and on a 7-on, 7-off rotation it is 36 hours. Choose the alignment when you set up the rotation. Federal rules let you set different workweeks for different groups of employees, but a change later has to be intended as permanent and not designed to evade overtime. To check a single employee’s pay for a week, use our overtime calculator.

Two more costs to plan for. Paid rest breaks count as hours worked, so they never reduce the total. And a state with daily overtime changes the math completely: California pays 1.5 times the regular rate after 8 hours in a workday and double time after 12. A properly adopted alternative workweek schedule can raise the daily threshold to as much as 10 hours (12 in health care), but hours over 12 are still double time.

How to use a 12-hour shift schedule template

1. Count your positions. For each post that must be covered 24/7, you need four people on a four-crew rotation, plus relief for vacations and sick days.
2. Pick the rotation with the crew. Share the comparison table and the PDFs. People care most about weekends off, the longest run of shifts and whether they rotate between days and nights.
3. Set the start date to the first day of your workweek and check the overtime column. Move the crew offsets to see which alignment works best, then fix it.
4. Check coverage. Every day should show the number of crews you need on days and on nights. A 0 is a gap; a 2 is wasted labor.
5. Add names and post it. List each crew’s members, print the PDF, and post it at least as far ahead as your policy or local scheduling law requires.
6. Track real hours separately. The schedule is the plan; swaps, call-offs and late punches change the actual hours. Keep timesheets or a time clock for pay.

Crews that live on a rotation trade shifts constantly. If you are tracking swaps on paper, a scheduling app that handles shift trades and overtime alerts will save more time than any template. Our 2-2-3 schedule guide covers how teams roll out a new rotation.

US rules to know before you schedule 12-hour shifts

These are general principles, checked on federal and state agency sites. They change, and states and cities add their own, so confirm with your state labor department.

• Overtime is weekly under federal law. The FLSA requires at least 1.5 times the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek for non-exempt employees, and the Department of Labor says averaging hours over two or more weeks is not permitted.
• Hospitals and residential care have an option. Under the 8-and-80 system, with an agreement made before the work is done, overtime is due for hours over 8 in a workday and over 80 in a fixed 14-day period.
• Some states have daily overtime. California requires 1.5 times the regular rate after 8 hours in a workday and double time after 12, and overtime on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek.
• Breaks depend on your state. Federal law does not require meal or rest breaks, but short breaks you do give are paid. California, for example, requires a 30-minute meal period before the end of the fifth hour, a second one for work over 10 hours, and a paid 10-minute rest break per four hours worked or major fraction.
• On-call time can be work time. The DOL says an employee required to stay on call at the employer’s premises is working; on call at home generally is not, unless the restrictions are heavy.
• Keep the schedules. The FLSA requires payroll records for at least three years, and lists work and time schedules among the records kept for two years. Keep the hours worked each day and each workweek.
• Scheduling laws may require notice. Oregon requires covered large retail, hospitality and food service employers to post schedules 14 days ahead, and Seattle requires covered retail and food service employers to post 14 days ahead and pay time-and-a-half for close-to-open shifts less than 10 hours apart.

Frequently asked questions