How to Add Minutes to Time in Excel?

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Sometimes we may need to add minutes to time in Excel, for example, when creating a schedule of times of departures and arrivals for a bus company or planning a school timetable. 

Excel stores time as fractional values of a 24-hour day. This understanding helps us use formulas to add minutes to time in Excel. 

In this tutorial, we have covered four methods to add minutes to time in Excel.

Method #1: Formula to Add Minutes As Decimals to Time in Excel

We can use a formula to add minutes in the form of a decimal time to time in Excel.

It is critical to know that Excel represents time as fractional values of a 24-hour day.

For example, one hour equals 1/24 of a day, and therefore a minute equals 1/(24*60) or 1/1440 of a day.

Consequently, the minutes we want to add to the time must be multiplied by 1/1440 to get the minutes as a decimal.

For the purpose of this tutorial, we have the below dataset showing the departure and layover times of various bus company buses.

data set with departure time and minutes that need to be added

We want to calculate the arrival times using a formula to add the layover minutes in column C to the bus departure times in column B and display the resultant arrival times in column D. 

Below are the steps to get the time when we have added the minutes in column C to the time in column B:

  1. Select cell D2 and enter the below formula in the cell:
=B2+(C2*1/1440)
formula to add minutes to time
  1. Press the Enter key on your keyboard to get the result of the formula in the cell
  1. Double-click on the fill-handle or drag it down to copy the formula to the entire column. 

The dataset shows the arrival times for different buses in column D as decimal values.

resulting data is in decimal

We need to apply a time format to the cell range D2:D6 to display the arrival times in a form understandable to humans. We apply the time format by using the steps below:

  1. Select the cell range D2:D6, right-click the selection, and choose Format Cells on the shortcut menu that appears.
right click on the cells for which you want to change the time format
  1. On the Format Cells dialog box that pops up, select the Number tab, select Time on the Category box, choose 1:30:55 on the Type box, and click OK.

The time format chosen on the dialog box is applied to the time values in column D:

Also read: How to Add Days to a Date in Excel

Method #2: Using the TIME Function to Add Minutes to Time in Excel

The TIME function takes a time value and gives us the decimal number that represents that time value. 

We can use the TIME function in Excel to add minutes to the time value. 

Presume we have the below dataset showing the various departure and layover times for different bus company buses.

data set with minutes that needs to be added to the time

We want to compute the arrival times using a formula involving the TIME function to add the minutes in column C to the departure times in column B and display the resultant time arrival times in column D. 

Below are the steps to add the minutes in column C to the departure time in column B:

  1. Select cell D2 and type in the following formula:
=B2+TIME(0,C2,0)
  1. Press the Enter key on your keyboard to get the result of the formula in the cell
  1. Double-click on the fill-handle or drag it down to copy the formula to the entire column. 

This will add the minutes to the departure time and give you the arrival time in column D as shown below:

final result of the time formula

Notice that in this method, we did not have to apply a time format to the cell range D2:D6 because the TIME function took care of that. 

Explanation of the formula

=B2+TIME(0,C2,0)

The TIME function changes the 15 minutes in cell C2 to a time (00:15:00). The formula =A3+TIME(0,B2,0) then becomes 8:30:00+00:15:00, which resolves to 8:45:00 AM.

Also read: How to Calculate Elapsed Time in Excel

Method #3: Using the NOW Function to Add Minutes to the Current Time

We may want to add minutes to the current time. We can do that by using a formula that contains the NOW function.

The NOW function returns the serial number of the current date and time. 

Suppose we want to add 15 minutes to the current time, we follow the steps below:

  1. Open a new worksheet.
  2. Enter the below formula in cell A1:
=NOW()+15/1440
adding minutes to time using the now function
  1. Press Enter.

The formula returns the serial number of the current date and time. 

the result of the now function

We need to apply a time format to the resultant value, so we have the time in a format humans can understand.

We apply the time format using the following steps.

  1. Select cell A1, right-click it, and choose Format Cells on the shortcut menu that pops up. 
right click on the sell result to format the cells
  1. On the Format Cells dialog box that appears, open the Number tab, select Time on the Category list box, 1:30:55 PM on the Type list box, and click OK.
select the time format for the cell

The dataset shows the current time plus 15 minutes in cell A1:

the result is now shown in the right time format

Notice that the NOW function has no arguments.

Also, note that the NOW function automatically updates whenever you make any changes in the worksheet or you close and then open the workbook. The NOW function would always update to show you the current time based on your system’s clock settings.

Also read: GMT to EST Conversion in Excel

Method #4: Add Minutes to Time Using the TIME, HOUR, MINUTE, and SECOND Functions 

Sometimes we may not want to enter in a cell the minutes we want to add to the time.

Instead, we may want to include the minutes directly in a formula.

Suppose we have the dataset below showing the old times in column A.  

data set with old time and new time column

We want to calculate the new time by adding 45 minutes to the old time using a formula that combines the TIME, HOUR, MINUTE, and SECOND functions.

We use the steps below:

  1. Select cell B2 and type in the following formula:
=TIME(HOUR(A2), MINUTE(A2)+45,SECOND(A2))
time hour minute and second formula to add time in Excel
  1. Click the Enter button on the formula bar to enter the formula.
  1. Double-click on the fill handle icon or drag it down to copy the formula to the entire column. 

The dataset displays the new times in column B:

new time is calculated after adding minutes to old time

Notice that the new times are in the custom h:mm AM/PM format.

Explanation of the formula

=TIME(HOUR(A2), MINUTE(A2)+45,SECOND(A2))

The HOUR function returns the hour in cell A2 as number 9, the MINUTE function returns the value 30, which is the minutes part of the value in cell A2, and the SECOND function returns 0, which is the seconds part of the value in cell A2.

Finally, the TIME function uses the values returned by the three functions to return a serial number formatted with a time format. 

In this tutorial, we looked at four simple techniques for adding minutes to time in Excel. We hope you found the information helpful.

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I am a huge fan of Microsoft Excel and love sharing my knowledge through articles and tutorials. I work as a business analyst and use Microsoft Excel extensively in my daily tasks. My aim is to help you unleash the full potential of Excel and become a data-slaying wizard yourself.

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