Free Blank Timesheet Templates
Free blank timesheet templates for small business: weekly, daily, biweekly, simple printable, contractor, and with breaks. Excel and printable. No signup.
Blank Timesheet Templates
Six free blank timesheet templates for small business: weekly, daily, biweekly, a simple printable version, a contractor sheet, and one with break columns. Download as Excel or print and fill in by hand. No signup.
A blank timesheet is an empty form for recording hours worked, ready to download, print, or fill in on a computer. What I would tell any owner or manager is that the form itself is plain, but choosing one that fits how you pay, and keeping the completed sheets, matters more than it looks.
For a small business, this form is often the whole time-tracking system: a simple grid the owner or a manager collects each period and uses to run payroll. The six templates below cover the range: a blank weekly form for most hourly tracking, a daily version, a biweekly one, a simple printable with no formulas, a contractor sheet, and one with break columns.
Each one downloads as an Excel file, free and without an email. The spreadsheet versions have the totals built in as formulas, and the printable version is made to fill in by hand. After the templates, you will find how to fill one out, how to convert minutes to decimal hours, and what the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires for overtime and record retention.
What a Blank Timesheet Is
A blank timesheet is an empty form for recording the hours an employee or contractor works, ready to fill in by hand or on a computer. It has a row for each day with time in, time out, break, and total hours, plus a header for the name, the period, and a signature. Blank timesheet, blank time sheet, and simple timesheet describe the same thing; the spacing and wording vary, but the form is identical.
A time sheet log is the same document under another name, and people mean two things by it. Usually it is a running record of hours across a period, which is what the weekly and biweekly forms below do. Sometimes it means a task-by-task record of where the time went, which is closer to a daily log sheet.
It is an employer-side record, filled in by the worker or a manager and approved before payroll runs. The blank version is simply the reusable starting point: the same form, emptied out, that you fill in each period. The Department of Labor recordkeeping rules let employers use any accurate timekeeping method, including employees writing their own times on a form, which is exactly what a blank timesheet is for.
A blank timesheet is one of several ways to record hours, and the right choice for a small business depends on volume and budget. Here is how the common methods compare.
| Method | Best for | Cost | Accuracy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blank timesheet | Small teams, simple needs | Free | Depends on the filler |
| Printed time card | A paper-based workplace | Free | Manual, error-prone |
| Time clock | Hourly shift teams | Hardware cost | High for clock-ins |
| Time-tracking software | Larger or remote teams | Per-user fee | High, automated |
What to Include
A complete blank timesheet covers four groups: header fields, time entry, totals, and a sign-off. Even an empty form needs all four, so here is what belongs in each.
The two elements worth insisting on are a total that the sheet computes for you and a manager approval line. Every spreadsheet template here computes its totals, and the printable version leaves them blank for hand math. The approval line is built into the weekly, daily, printable, and breaks sheets.
Which Template Should You Use?
Match the template to how you pay and how you track. Weekly for most hourly work, daily for project or day-rate work, biweekly for the two-week cycle, the simple printable for a paper record, the contractor sheet for freelance work, and the breaks version where meal breaks need recording.
6 Free Blank Timesheet Templates
Download all six as a single Excel set or grab individual templates. Each downloads as an Excel file with the columns and totals already built, free and with no signup, and every one opens cleanly in Google Sheets. The simple printable is made to print blank and fill in by hand.
Template 1: Blank Weekly Timesheet
A seven-day grid with time in, time out, break, and a weekly total that sums automatically, all empty and ready to fill. It is the right start for most hourly tracking.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Day | Date | Time In | Time Out | Break (min) | Total Hrs |
| 2 | Monday | |||||
| 3 | Tuesday | |||||
| 4 | Wednesday | |||||
| 5 | Thursday | |||||
| 6 | Friday | |||||
| 7 | Saturday | |||||
| 8 | Sunday | |||||
| 9 | Weekly Total | =SUM(F2:F8) |
Template 2: Blank Daily Timesheet
A single-day sheet that logs hours by task or project with a daily total. For day-rate work or when you bill or cost time by project.
| A | B | C | D | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Task / Project | Time In | Time Out | Break (min) | Hours |
| 2 | |||||
| 3 | |||||
| 4 | |||||
| 5 | |||||
| 6 | |||||
| 7 | |||||
| 8 | Daily Total | =SUM(E2:E7) |
Template 3: Simple Printable Timesheet
A stripped-down weekly grid with no formulas, made to print and fill in by hand. For a paper record or a workplace that does not run on spreadsheets.
| A | B | C | D | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Day | Date | In | Out | Hours |
| 2 | Monday | ||||
| 3 | Tuesday | ||||
| 4 | Wednesday | ||||
| 5 | Thursday | ||||
| 6 | Friday | ||||
| 7 | Saturday | ||||
| 8 | Sunday | ||||
| 9 | Total |
Template 4: Blank Biweekly Timesheet
Two blank weekly grids on separate tabs for the every-two-weeks cycle, with per-week totals that keep each workweek separate so overtime is still figured per week. Under DOL Fact Sheet #23, averaging hours over two or more weeks is not permitted.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Day | Date | Time In | Time Out | Break | Total Hrs |
| 2 | Monday | |||||
| 3 | Tuesday | |||||
| 4 | Wednesday | |||||
| 5 | Thursday | |||||
| 6 | Friday | |||||
| 7 | Saturday | |||||
| 8 | Sunday | |||||
| 9 | Week 1 Total | =SUM(F2:F8) |
Template 5: Blank Contractor Timesheet
A blank sheet with date, task, start and end, hours, rate, and an auto-calculated amount, so it doubles as an hours record and an invoice basis for freelance work.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Date | Project / Task | Start | End | Hours | Rate | Amount |
| 2 | =E2*F2 | ||||||
| 3 | =E3*F3 | ||||||
| 4 | =E4*F4 | ||||||
| 5 | =E5*F5 | ||||||
| 6 | =E6*F6 | ||||||
| 7 | Total | =SUM(E2:E6) | =SUM(G2:G6) |
Template 6: Blank Timesheet with Breaks
A weekly grid with separate break-start and break-end columns for tracking unpaid meal breaks precisely. For workplaces where breaks need to be recorded.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Day | Time In | Break Start | Break End | Time Out | Total Hrs |
| 2 | Monday | |||||
| 3 | Tuesday | |||||
| 4 | Wednesday | |||||
| 5 | Thursday | |||||
| 6 | Friday | |||||
| 7 | Saturday | |||||
| 8 | Sunday | |||||
| 9 | Weekly Total | =SUM(F2:F8) |
Printing a Timesheet as a PDF
To get a timesheet as a PDF, open the Simple Printable sheet and choose the PDF option in the print dialog instead of a printer. That sheet is built for printing: no formulas, a plain seven-day grid, and lines for the employee and the manager to sign.
Everything here downloads as Excel rather than PDF because a flat PDF is awkward to type into, and hours change often enough that most people want to edit the file. Print blank sheets for a crew that fills them in by hand, and keep the spreadsheet version for whoever totals the period.
How to Fill Out a Blank Timesheet
Filling out a blank timesheet takes a minute a day. Here is the sequence the templates are built around.
Minutes to Decimal Hours
To convert minutes to decimal hours, divide the minutes by 60. Payroll is usually calculated in decimal hours, not hours and minutes, so 8 hours and 30 minutes becomes 8.50 for pay. On the spreadsheet templates, if you enter clock times, multiplying the elapsed time by 24 converts it to decimal hours. Here is a quick reference for common break and time lengths.
Inconsistent rounding of minutes quietly creates pay discrepancies over time, so apply one rounding rule to everyone, and make sure it is a rule the law accepts.
The federal time-clock rule, 29 CFR 785.48, accepts rounding to the nearest 5 minutes, or to the nearest tenth or quarter of an hour. The condition is that, over a period of time, the rounding does not leave employees unpaid for time they actually worked, so a habit that only ever rounds down fails it.
Overtime and Recordkeeping
Two federal rules sit underneath every timesheet, blank or filled: how overtime is calculated, and how long you keep the record. Both are simple, and getting either one wrong is a common small-business mistake.
Overtime is owed to non-exempt employees at one and one-half times their regular rate for hours worked over 40 in a workweek, calculated per workweek rather than per pay period. A blank biweekly sheet still needs each week totaled on its own so overtime is not missed. The hourly rate has a floor too: the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and many states set a higher one.
When an employer keeps inadequate time records, an employee can prove unpaid hours as a matter of just and reasonable inference, in other words with a reasonable approximation rather than an exact record. The burden then shifts to the employer to show the precise hours worked. The Supreme Court set that rule in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co. (1946), which is why completed timesheets protect you in a wage dispute.
Blank Timesheets for a Small Business
A large company runs time tracking through software and a payroll team. A small business often has an owner or a manager handing out a blank form and collecting it back every period, and paying the price when hours are wrong or a sheet goes missing. The good news is that a blank timesheet, used consistently, is a completely legitimate system; it just has to be simple, accurate for each workweek, and retained.
The single most valuable habit is collecting a completed, signed timesheet every period in one consistent format, and holding onto it. A signed, retained record is what turns a payroll question into a quick lookup instead of an argument.
From Blank Form to HR Software
A blank timesheet is the right tool for a small team, and these templates work on their own. The strain shows up when hours, approvals, and record retention live in scattered files, when chasing sheets every period eats a manager's time, and when a lost record becomes a real liability.
When that point arrives, FirstHR keeps the records around the timesheet together. Employee profiles hold the roster with each person's FLSA status and standard hours, document storage keeps completed timesheets and wage records next to the employee handbook and time-off policy, and employees sign their acknowledgment of your timekeeping policy with e-signature in the self-service portal.
FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a payroll processor, so the hours still come from your timesheets or time clock and the pay from your payroll provider, with a professional advisor for wage questions. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a blank timesheet?
A blank timesheet is a timekeeping form with nothing filled in yet, used to log the hours an employee or contractor works, either on paper or in a spreadsheet. Most versions give each day its own row, with columns for start time, end time, break, and total hours, and a header that holds the employee name, the week, and space for signatures. Because no hours are entered, the same blank timesheet works for every pay period: download or print a fresh copy, fill it in as the days go by, and add up the total when the period closes. Common layouts are weekly, daily, biweekly, and printable, and the right one follows your pay schedule and what you need to track. What a blank timesheet really gives you is consistency: when everyone fills in the same form the same way, hours are recorded accurately and payroll goes quickly.
How do I make a blank timesheet in Excel?
Starting from a ready-made template is quicker than building a grid from scratch: open one of the Excel files on this page and the layout, column labels, and total formula are already in place. To build your own, use the first column for the day of the week and add columns for time in, time out, break, and total hours, one row per day. Above the grid, leave room for the employee name, the week ending date, and a signature line. For an automatic total, put a SUM formula under the hours column. If you also want the sheet to work out each day from clock times, subtract time in and the break from time out, then either format the cells as time or convert the result to decimal hours. The spreadsheet templates here already include the SUM total, so whether you open them in Excel or Google Sheets, you enter the times and daily hours and the period total calculates itself.
What is the difference between a blank timesheet and a time card?
The terms overlap, and many people use them interchangeably, but there is a slight distinction. A timesheet is usually a form, on paper or in a spreadsheet, where hours are written or typed in for a period such as a week. A time card historically refers to the physical card a worker punched in a time clock, and today often means the digital record a clock or app produces automatically. In practice, both capture the same thing, hours worked, and both serve the same payroll and recordkeeping purpose. A blank timesheet is simply the empty form version: you fill it in manually rather than having a clock stamp it. For a small business without a time clock, a blank timesheet is the simplest way to keep an accurate hours record.
How do I fill out a blank timesheet?
Fill out a blank timesheet from the top down: header first, then the daily times, then the totals, then the signatures. In the header, note whose sheet it is, who approves it, which week or pay period it covers, and the hourly rate when the sheet is used to figure pay. For every day worked, write down when the shift started, when it ended, and how long any unpaid break lasted. The total for that day is the time from start to finish minus the break, and it goes in the total column. When the period ends, add the daily figures together for the period total, and watch for overtime, since hours beyond 40 in a single workweek are generally owed at one and one-half times the regular rate. Approval comes last, with the employee and the manager both signing. On the spreadsheet templates, a SUM formula produces the period total as soon as the daily hours are filled in.
How do I convert minutes to decimal hours on a timesheet?
Divide the minutes by 60 to get decimal hours. A 15-minute entry, for example, is 15 divided by 60, or 0.25 hours, and the same math turns 6 minutes into 0.1, 30 minutes into 0.50, and 45 minutes into 0.75. You need the conversion because pay is normally figured in decimal hours rather than hours and minutes, so a shift of 8 hours and 30 minutes goes into payroll as 8.50 hours. In a spreadsheet that stores times as clock values, multiply the difference between the two clock times by 24 and the result is in decimal hours. Whatever method you use, apply it the same way every time, because rounding minutes one way on some days and another way on others leads to pay errors.
How long do employers have to keep timesheets?
Federal law sets two minimums: at least three years for payroll records and at least two years for the timesheets and other records that wages are computed from. Both periods come from the Department of Labor recordkeeping rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and the two-year group covers time cards and work and time schedules. You may keep these records electronically, provided you can produce them when the Department of Labor asks to inspect them. Holding every timesheet for three years is the simpler habit, because it covers the longer federal window and the FLSA statute of limitations, which allows two years to bring a wage claim, or three when the violation is willful. Some states require longer; New York, for example, requires payroll records to be kept for at least six years. So do not throw completed timesheets away when a pay period or a year closes. File them where you can find them again, since they are the record you rely on in a wage dispute or an audit. This is general information, not legal advice.
Do I have to pay overtime based on a timesheet?
Yes, for non-exempt employees. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires every hour a non-exempt employee works beyond 40 in a workweek to be paid at one and one-half times the regular rate, and the timesheet is the record that proves how many hours that was. Overtime is counted week by week, not across the whole pay period, which is why a biweekly timesheet needs a separate total for each of its two weeks. Underneath overtime sits the $7.25 hourly federal minimum wage, which many states raise with a higher minimum of their own. Salaried employees who pass the FLSA duties and salary tests are exempt and generally earn no overtime, but being salaried does not settle it on its own, and neither does a job title: the actual duties decide. If a timesheet shows more than 40 hours in a workweek and you have not confirmed the employee is exempt, treat the extra hours as overtime. This is general information, not legal advice.
Can I use a blank timesheet instead of time-tracking software?
Yes. A blank timesheet is a fully valid way to track hours, because the Department of Labor accepts any timekeeping method that is complete and accurate, including a form on which employees write their own hours. For a small team, a blank timesheet is often cheaper and easier to run than software, and as long as it is filled in the same way every period and signed off by a manager, it gives you a record you can defend. What usually pushes a business off paper is volume: more people to chase for sheets each period, more arithmetic to check, and more paper to file, until the manual routine takes more time than a system would. Until you reach that point, a consistent blank timesheet with manager approval does the job well. Begin with the form, and add software once collecting and adding up sheets by hand costs you more time than it saves.