Add Hours to a Time in Excel (and minutes, and over 24 hours)

Excel counts time in days, so 1 hour = 1/24. To add hours, divide them by 24 first.

Add a number of hours

=A2+B2/24

09:30 plus 3.5 hours → 13:00.

A common mistake is =A2+3 — that adds 3 days.

With TIME()

=A2+TIME(3,30,0)

TIME(hours, minutes, seconds). Clear to read, but each part is limited: TIME(25,0,0) wraps round to 1:00.

Add minutes

=A2+B2/1440

1440 minutes in a day. Or =A2+TIME(0,45,0).

Past midnight

22:00 + 4 hours shows 02:00. If A2 holds a date and time, the date moves to the next day too — show it with format dd-mmm hh:mm.

Total many times (more than 24 hours)

=SUM(C2:C8) of a week’s shifts shows 13:30 instead of 37:30. Format the total cell: Ctrl+1 › Custom › [h]:mm.

Subtract hours

=A2-B2/24

Going before midnight gives #### for times without dates; use =MOD(A2-B2/24,1).

Related: time difference · time to decimal · dates: date formulas