You can use the following formula to calculate the difference between two times in hours in Excel:
=(B2-A2)*24
This particular formula calculates the difference (in hours) between the times in cells B2 and A2.
By default, the formula B2-A2 would return the difference between cells B2 and A2 in terms of days.
Since there are 24 hours in a day, we must multiply the result of B2-A2 by 24 to get the difference in terms of hours instead of days.
The following example shows how to use this formula in practice.
Example: Calculate Difference Between Times in Hours in Excel
Suppose we have the following two columns in Excel that show the start and end times for some events:
We can type the following formula into cell C2 to calculate the difference between the start and end time for the first row in terms of hours:
=(B2-A2)*24
We can then drag and fill this formula down to each remaining cell in column C:
The values in column C display the difference in hours between the Start Time and End Time for each row.
Note that the time difference in the last row is greater than 24 because the difference between the Start Time and End Time for the last row is greater than one whole day.
Note: If you only want to know the difference between two times in terms of whole hours, you can use the following formula:
=INT((B2-A2)*24)
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in Excel:
How to Calculate Average Time in Excel
How to Plot Time Over Multiple Days in Excel
How to Add & Subtract Hours from Time in Excel