# How to calculate how many minutes late someone is in Excel

Subtract the start time, convert to minutes and floor at zero: `=MAX(0,(B2-$F$1)*1440)`.

**Excel:** `=MAX(0,(B2-$F$1)*1440)` (Every current version)

**Google Sheets:** the same formula works.

## Example

Sample data (row 1 is the header):

| A | B | C | D | E | F |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Employee | Arrived | Minutes late |  | Shift starts | 0.3333333333333333 |
| Ava | 0.33055555555555555 |  |  |  |  |
| Ben | 0.3333333333333333 |  |  |  |  |
| Cara | 0.33819444444444446 |  |  |  |  |
| Dev | 0.3548611111111111 |  |  |  |  |
| Eli | 0.3763888888888889 |  |  |  |  |
| Fay | 0.3229166666666667 |  |  |  |  |

Formula in C2, filled to C7: `=MAX(0,(B2-$F$1)*1440)`

Result: 0; 0; 7; 31; 62; 0

## How it works

`B2-$F$1` is how far past the start the arrival was, as a fraction of a day, and multiplying by 1,440 turns it into minutes. `MAX(0, …)` turns early arrivals into 0 instead of negative minutes: Dev arrived at 8:31, 31 minutes late.

## Other ways

- `=MAX(0,ROUND((B2-$F$1)*1440,0))`: Whole minutes. ROUND also removes floating-point noise, so 7 never shows as 6.9999999. (Rounds to whole minutes when the times include seconds.)
- `=IF(B2>$F$1,"Late","On time")`: Just a flag. (Late or On time.)

## Common mistakes

- Without MAX, early arrivals show negative minutes.
- Time arithmetic can give 6.9999999 instead of 7. Round it before comparing, for example with a grace period: `=IF(ROUND((B2-$F$1)*1440,0)>5,ROUND((B2-$F$1)*1440,0),0)` ignores up to 5 minutes.

## Questions

**How do I show lateness as h:mm?**

`=MAX(0,B2-$F$1)`, formatted as h:mm.

**How do I count late arrivals?**

`=COUNTIF(C2:C7,">0")`.

Every formula and result on this page was checked by running it in the Spreadsheet Practice formula engine on 2026-10-30.

Source: https://spreadsheetpractice.com/formulas/minutes-late