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4/10 schedule
Four ten-hour shifts, three days off, every week. The most common compressed schedule in American law enforcement.
- Shift length
- 10 hours
- Cycle
- 7 days or multi-week
- Average week
- 40 hours
- Days off
- 3 per week
What the 4/10 schedule is
Four ten-hour shifts a week instead of five eights. Same forty hours, one more day off, and a heavier overlap between watches for the agency.
That overlap is why so many departments moved to it. Two watches sharing a couple of hours each day means more units on the street at shift change, which is often when call volume peaks.
Pure 4/10 is a weekly pattern with fixed days off. In practice most agencies wrap it in a longer rotation — six weeks is common — where crews move through day and night tours and the days off shift with each block.
How the cycle runs
The base week. In a rotating version, this block repeats with different weekdays and flips to nights partway through the cycle:
Day shiftDay off
Rotating 4/10
A six-week 4/10 rotation is a good example of why the pattern name alone doesn't tell you your schedule. The shift length is fixed at ten hours, but which four days you work, and whether you're on days or nights, changes from block to block.
Patterns like these are the reason a rotation is worth saving once as a template and applying from a start date, rather than typed in a week at a time.
Hours and overtime
Forty hours a week, on the nose, which is the main administrative appeal — no built-in overtime and no alternating heavy and light weeks.
The catch is the tenth hour. A ten-hour shift with a holdover on the back end runs to twelve or thirteen before anyone notices, and those hours only show up if you log them.
Who works it
Compressed weeks are most common where agencies want overlap without twelve-hour tours:
- Municipal police departments
- State patrol and highway agencies
- Detectives and specialty units
- Corrections
- Public works and utilities
- Government offices
The trade-off
What works
- A third day off every week, permanently
- Forty hours exactly — clean pay periods
- Shift overlap puts more units out at peak times
- Shorter tours than a twelve-hour rotation
What hurts
- Ten hours plus a holdover is a long day
- Rotating versions move your days off every block
- Four ten-hour days can leave little evening left
- Overlap can mean split briefings
Put it on your calendar
Four tens is the most common compressed shift schedule in policing, and it gives you a third day off every week, and the only question most weeks is which three days you are on.
Save the pattern once and it fills in ahead of you, with the off-duty work you pick up on that third day tracked beside it.
Common questions
Is 4/10 the same as a compressed work week?
It's the most common form of one. Four ten-hour days is forty hours in four days instead of five.
Do 4/10 schedules rotate?
Often. Many agencies run 4/10 inside a multi-week rotation that moves crews through day and night tours, with the days off changing each block.
How many hours a week is 4/10?
Forty, before any overtime, holdovers or court time.
Put the 4/10 schedule on your calendar
Save the 4/10 schedule once, tell BlueShifts the day your cycle starts, and the rest of the year draws itself. Then the off-duty work you pick up around it goes in beside the shifts.
Scan to install — or hold it up for the officer next to you.
