HOUR Function in Excel: Hour From a Time

HOUR Function in Excel: Hour From a Time featured illustration

📎 This article includes 1 downloadable practice file ↓

⏱ 2 min readUpdated 5 October 2026

DateLevel: BeginnerAvailable in: Excel 2007+

In this article
  1. Syntax
  2. Examples
  3. Example 1
  4. HOUR in practice
  5. Where you will use it
  6. Worked example
  7. Mistakes people make
  8. Related functions
  9. Continue learning

HOUR returns 0–23 from a time or date-time. The quickest way to group call-centre or sales data by hour of day.

Advertisement

Syntax

=HOUR(serial_number)
Argument What it means
serial_number Time or date-time.

Examples

Example 1

=COUNTIFS(Calls!C:C, ">="&TIME(H2,0,0))

Pair with a helper =HOUR(C2) column and a pivot for calls per hour.

💡 HOUR never goes past 23. For durations over a day use =INT(A2*24).

HOUR in practice

Where you will use it

  • Hour of a timestamp for shift analysis
  • Calls per hour from a call log
  • Flag entries made after office hours

Worked example

TimestampFormulaResult
2026-10-04 09:45=HOUR(A2)9
2026-10-04 18:05=HOUR(A3)18
2026-10-04 23:59=HOUR(A4)23

Results calculated in Excel.

Mistakes people make

MistakeWhat to do instead
Text timesConvert with TIMEVALUE first
Durations over 24 hoursHOUR returns 0-23; for total hours use =A2*24

MINUTE · SECOND · TIME

📚 Part of the free Excel course: Beginner → Expert · Try it in the Formula Lab or ask the AI Helper.

⚡ Interactive Practice Lab & Formula Tester:

Test formulas dynamically in our web formula laboratory or download the companion Excel workbook.

Continue learning

All Date & Time guides →
TIMEVALUE Function in Excel: Text Time to Real TimeDateLevel: IntermediateAvailable in: Excel 2007+TIMEVALUE turns text like "2:45 PM" into a real time…DATEVALUE Function in Excel: Convert Text Dates Into Real DatesDATEVALUE turns a date written as text into a real date number. It follows…MINUTE Function in Excel: Minute From a TimeDateLevel: BeginnerAvailable in: Excel 2007+MINUTE returns 0–59 from a time.Syntax=MINUTE(serial_number)ArgumentWhat it.SECOND Function in Excel: Second From a TimeDateLevel: BeginnerAvailable in: Excel 2007+SECOND returns 0–59. Mostly used to strip seconds from machine.

📎 Practice files for this article

  • 📗
    Practice workbook: Dates & times22 tasks on realistic sales data — type your formula, the Check column turns green when it is right. Answers sheet included.
    ⬇ XLSX · 34 KB

Free to use for learning. Files with macros (.bas) are plain text — import them with Alt+F11 → File → Import File, and always test on a copy.

✨ Ask AI about this article

Stuck on a step? Ask a question and the AI answers using this article.

Free · AI can be wrong