The Excel MINUTE function reads the minute hand off any time and returns it as a plain number from 0 to 59. Excel stores times as fractions of a 24-hour day — 0.5 is noon, 0.5104167 is 12:15 PM — so the minute isn’t visible in the raw value; MINUTE decodes it. It accepts real times, full date-time stamps, raw fractions, and even text like "9:07 AM". Use it with HOUR and SECOND to dismantle a time, and TIME to rebuild one.
9:07 AM the result is 7. It’s the clock’s minute hand — not the number of minutes elapsed (that’s =(B2-A2)*1440).
Syntax
| Argument | Description | |
|---|---|---|
serial_number | Required | The time to read: a cell holding a time or date-time, a TIME/TIMEVALUE result, a raw day fraction like 0.5104167, or quoted text such as "9:07 AM". |
How Excel stores times: a time is a fraction of one day, so one minute is 1/1440 = 0.0006944 of a day. MINUTE converts the fraction back to clock units and returns just the minutes digit pair, 0–59. Any date part is ignored. Available in every version of Excel.
Read the minute from a time
Column A holds clock-in times. MINUTE pulls the minute component; column C shows a common follow-up — snapping each time to a 15-minute billing grid:
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Timestamp | =MINUTE(A) | Rounded to :15 grid |
| 2 | 9:07 AM | 7 | 9:00 AM |
| 3 | 9:23 AM | 23 | 9:30 AM |
| 4 | 2:52 PM | 52 | 2:45 PM |
| 5 | 0.5104167 | 15 | 12:15 PM |
Or rebuild the time with the minute rounded yourself:
Try it: interactive MINUTE demo
Pick a time and watch MINUTE extract the minute hand — alongside the day fraction Excel really stores and the elapsed-minutes-since-midnight figure people often want instead.
Elapsed minutes done right
The most common MINUTE mistake is using it to measure a gap. =MINUTE(B2-A2) only works for gaps under an hour — a 90-minute meeting reports 30. Because times are day fractions, multiply the difference by 1440 (minutes per day) instead:
Going the other way, add minutes to a time with a fraction or a TIME interval:
Minutes past the hour also make a handy grouping key for log data:
Rule of thumb: ×1440 turns a day fraction into minutes; ÷1440 turns minutes into a day fraction you can add to any time.
Errors & common pitfalls
#VALUE! — unreadable text. MINUTE converts recognizable time text like "9:07 AM" on the fly, but anything else — "9.07 AM", "907", stray spaces — fails. Convert imported text once with TIMEVALUE and reference real times.
Pitfall: MINUTE is not “elapsed minutes”. =MINUTE(B2-A2) wraps at every hour: a 75-minute gap reports 15. Use =(B2-A2)*1440 for durations.
Pitfall: display rounding hides the true minute. A cell formatted h:mm can show 9:08 while storing 9:07:48 — but MINUTE returns 7, reading the stored value, not the display. Show seconds (h:mm:ss) when auditing.
Pitfall: writing the result back as text. =MINUTE(A2) & " min" returns text, which won’t sum or sort numerically. Keep the number and use a custom format like 0" min" instead.
Practice workbook
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate minutes between two times in Excel?
=(B2-A2)*1440. Excel times are fractions of a day and a day has 1440 minutes. Don't use MINUTE for this — it wraps at 60 and ignores hours entirely.Why does MINUTE(B2-A2) give the wrong answer?
=(B2-A2)*1440 counts every minute.How do I add minutes to a time?
=A2+25/1440 adds 25 minutes. Or use =A2+TIME(0,25,0). Both add a day fraction, so the result stays a real time you can format and chart.How do I round times to the nearest 15 minutes?
=MROUND(A2, TIME(0,15,0)) rounds to the nearest quarter hour; use FLOOR or CEILING in place of MROUND to always round down or up — the usual choice for billing.Does MINUTE work on dates and text?
"9:07 AM" it converts and extracts. Unrecognizable text returns #VALUE!.Master functions like this in one day
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