TIME function

This article describes the formula syntax and usage of the TIME function in Microsoft Excel.

Description

Returns the decimal number for a particular time. If the cell format was General before the function was entered, the result is formatted as a date.

The decimal number returned by TIME is a value ranging from 0 (zero) to 0.99988426, representing the times from 0:00:00 (12:00:00 AM) to 23:59:59 (11:59:59 P.M.).

Syntax

TIME(hour, minute, second)

The TIME function syntax has the following arguments:

• Hour    Required. A number from 0 (zero) to 32767 representing the hour. Any value greater than 23 will be divided by 24 and the remainder will be treated as the hour value. For example, TIME(27,0,0) = TIME(3,0,0) = .125 or 3:00 AM.
• Minute    Required. A number from 0 to 32767 representing the minute. Any value greater than 59 will be converted to hours and minutes. For example, TIME(0,750,0) = TIME(12,30,0) = .520833 or 12:30 PM.
• Second    Required. A number from 0 to 32767 representing the second. Any value greater than 59 will be converted to hours, minutes, and seconds. For example, TIME(0,0,2000) = TIME(0,33,22) = .023148 or 12:33:20 AM

Remark

Time values are a portion of a date value and represented by a decimal number (for example, 12:00 PM is represented as 0.5 because it is half of a day).

Example

Copy the example data in the following table, and paste it in cell A1 of a new Excel worksheet. For formulas to show results, select them, press F2, and then press Enter. If you need to, you can adjust the column widths to see all the data.

Hour	Minute	Second
12	0	0
16	48	10
Formula	Description	Result
=TIME(A2,B2,C2)	Decimal part of a day, for the time specified in row 2 (12 hours, 0, minutes, 0 seconds)	0.5
=TIME(A3,B3,C3)	Decimal part of a day, for the time specified in row 3 (16 hours, 48 minutes, 10 seconds)	0.7001157