How this card takes off lunch
Most time clocks do not have a punch for lunch. You clock in once in the morning and out once in the evening, and the payroll system takes thirty minutes off in the middle whether or not you stopped. That is called an automatic deduction, and it is the setting this card copies, because it is the one you need to check your pay against.
Two things control it. Lunch, minutes is how long the deduction is — thirty is the usual figure, some workplaces use forty-five or sixty. Deduct when is when it applies. The default is shift runs over 6 hours, which is the most common rule in employer systems: a five hour shift gets no lunch taken off, a nine hour shift gets thirty minutes. Pick every day worked if your employer deducts regardless, or the five or eight hour thresholds if that is what your handbook says.
Each day shows what the rule decided in the lunch box, in grey. If one day was different — a longer lunch, or a short one — type the real minutes over it and that day uses your figure. If you had no lunch at all, press worked through. The day is marked, nothing is deducted, and the count of worked-through days appears in the summary so you can say to payroll, in one line, how many lunches you are owed.
When an automatic deduction is allowed, and when it is not
Under federal law a real meal period — usually thirty minutes or more, during which you are completely relieved of duty — does not have to be paid. A break of twenty minutes or less counts as work time and must be paid. So an employer may deduct a thirty minute lunch automatically, and it is lawful, provided the lunch was actually taken.
The trouble starts when it was not. If you ate at your desk answering the phone, stayed on the floor because nobody came to cover, or were called back ten minutes in, that was not a meal period and it has to be paid. The deduction still happens, because the system does not know. Employers are expected to have a way for you to reverse it — a form, a manager's correction, a note on the timesheet — and to pay the time when they knew or should have known you worked through. An automatic deduction with no way to cancel it is the thing that turns into a claim.
That is what the worked-through button is for. It does not change what your employer's system did. It shows what the total should be, day by day, and gives you the count and the minutes to ask for.
Meal break rules by state
Federal law does not require a lunch break at all. About twenty states do, and the trigger — how long the shift has to be before a break is owed — is different in each. The rule matters here because it usually decides the Deduct when setting: where the state requires a thirty minute break after five hours, employer systems tend to deduct after five.
| State | Break | Owed when the shift runs |
|---|---|---|
| California | 30 min, unpaid | Over 5 hours; a second one over 10 |
| Colorado | 30 min | Over 5 hours |
| Connecticut | 30 min | 7½ hours or more |
| Delaware | 30 min | 7½ hours or more |
| Illinois | 20 min | 7½ hours or more |
| Kentucky | Reasonable meal period | Between the 3rd and 5th hour |
| Maine | 30 min | Over 6 hours; not where fewer than 3 are on duty and breaks are frequent |
| Massachusetts | 30 min | Over 6 hours |
| Minnesota | 30 min | 6 hours or more |
| Nevada | 30 min | 8 hours or more; not where only one person works |
| New Hampshire | 30 min | Over 5 hours |
| New York | 30 to 60 min | Over 6 hours, and it depends on the shift |
| North Dakota | 30 min | Over 5 hours, when two or more employees are on duty |
| Oregon | 30 min | 6 hours or more |
| Rhode Island | 20 to 30 min | 6 to 8 hour shifts |
| Tennessee | 30 min | 6 hours or more |
| Vermont | Reasonable opportunity to eat | No fixed length or threshold |
| Washington | 30 min | Over 5 hours |
| West Virginia | 20 min | 6 hours or more, unless already given breaks or allowed to eat while working |
Each row was checked against the state's own statute or labor department page on 30 September 2026.
Everywhere else, the break is whatever your employer's policy or your contract says. Union agreements, hospital and public-sector rules often set their own. This table is a starting point for choosing the setting, not a statement of your rights — those come from your state labor department, and they change.
If the system took a lunch you worked through
- Fill in this card for the pay period from your own clock-in and clock-out times, with the same lunch rule your employer uses. Press worked through on the days you had no break.
- Compare the total with your pay stub. The difference is the summary line worked through times the lunch length.
- Download the Excel. It lists every day with the shift, the lunch that was or was not deducted, and the hours, so the person in payroll can see the same thing you see.
- Raise it in writing with whoever runs payroll, in the same pay period if you can. Most employers correct it on the next run. Keep the sheet.
If it keeps happening, or the answer is that the deduction cannot be reversed, that is a question for your state labor department or the federal Wage and Hour Division, not for a calculator.
Questions people ask
My employer deducts thirty minutes after five hours. Which setting?
Lunch 30, shift runs over 5 hours. A five hour shift on the dot gets nothing deducted; five hours and one minute gets thirty.
I clock out for lunch and back in. Can I use this card?
You can, but the time card with multiple in and out punches is the right one — it counts the punches themselves and takes nothing off automatically. This card is for the single-punch day where the lunch is deducted by rule.
Is my lunch paid?
Usually not, if it is a real break of thirty minutes or more. If your employer pays lunch, set the lunch to 0 minutes and the card counts the whole shift.
Does it handle a night shift that ends the next morning?
Yes. Enter 10:00pm and 6:30am and it counts eight and a half hours, and takes the lunch off if the rule says so.
Does it round the times?
No. It counts the exact minutes you enter, and it deducts the exact lunch you set. If your employer rounds punches to the quarter hour, the totals here may differ by a few minutes a day. Rounding that always favors the employer is not lawful under the FLSA.
Is my time card sent anywhere?
No. Everything is worked out inside your browser, and what you type is kept in this browser only so the card is still here if you come back. Clear removes it. Nothing reaches a server.