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5-5 2-2 schedule
Five on, five off, two on, two off. Fourteen days, seven of them worked, on eleven-hour shifts — and every other weekend off by design.
- Shift length
- 11 hours
- Cycle
- 14 days
- Average week
- 38.5 hours
- Days off
- 7 per cycle
What the 5-5 2-2 schedule is
Five shifts, five days off, two shifts, two days off. Fourteen days from start to repeat, seven of them worked.
The eleven-hour shift is what makes the arithmetic work. Seven elevens is seventy-seven hours a fortnight, which averages a little over thirty-eight hours a week — close enough to a standard week that it needs no unpaid gap, and short enough that the five-day break is genuinely free.
Because fourteen days divides evenly by seven, the pattern does not drift. Your days off land on the same weekdays every cycle, and every other weekend is off by construction rather than by luck.
How the cycle runs
One fourteen-day cycle:
Day shiftDay off
Print this rotation (PDF) One page — the cycle above, and a blank grid for your own dates.
Weekends off on this rotation
This cycle is 14 days, which divides by seven — so it lands on the same weekdays for ever and never drifts. Which weekends you get is decided by your squad, not by the pattern. Across the squads the answer runs from 0 weekends a year to 52.
A squad that does well on this rotation: 52 full weekends across a year. A weekend counts only when both the Saturday and the Sunday are free. All 21 rotations compared →
BlueShifts. Plan Your Year. Own Your Time.
The shift calendar built for your rotation, off-duty work, and life on and off the clock.
Save this pattern once and the year fills itself in — forward as far as you want, and back over the months you have already worked.
The five-day break is the point
Most rotations buy their long break by working longer blocks. This one buys it with a short second block: two shifts, two days off, and back into the five.
Five consecutive days off every fortnight is enough for travel, a course, or a stretch of off-duty work that a two-day weekend cannot hold. It is the reason officers who work it tend to defend it.
Where the eleven hours come from
Eleven is an unusual shift length and it is chosen deliberately. Twelve-hour shifts on a seven-day fortnight would give eighty-four hours and a payroll problem; ten-hour shifts would give seventy and leave the department short.
Some agencies pair it with a wellness allowance to square the remainder. Oakdale, Minnesota calls its version a wellness concept schedule and pays officers up to seventy-eight wellness hours in lieu of time owed.
Who works it
Departments that have published this rotation:
- Oakdale Police Department, Minnesota — 11-hour shifts, 5/5 2/2, every other weekend off
- South Lake Minnetonka Police Department, Minnesota — 2-on-2-off, 5-on-5-off on 11-hour shifts
- Municipal police patrol divisions
- Agencies running day, afternoon and overnight watches
- Dispatch centers covering 24 hours
The trade-off
What works
- A five-day break every fortnight
- Days off never drift — fourteen days divides by seven
- Every other weekend off by design
- Eleven hours is shorter than a twelve and still covers the clock
- Seven working days a fortnight instead of ten
What hurts
- Eleven-hour shifts are still long days
- Five shifts in a row before the long break
- The two-day block can feel like an afterthought
- Less common than 12-hour patterns, so fewer people have worked it before
Put it on your calendar
Working it out by hand is where the mistakes happen.
Save the pattern once and BlueShifts fills the calendar in, forward and back.
Common questions
How many hours a week is the 5-5 2-2 schedule?
Seven eleven-hour shifts every fourteen days — seventy-seven hours a fortnight, or about thirty-eight and a half hours a week.
Do the days off stay on the same weekdays?
Yes. Fourteen days divides evenly by seven, so the pattern repeats on the same weekdays and every other weekend is off.
Is 5-5 2-2 the same as 2-2 5-5?
Yes — the same fourteen-day cycle, described from a different starting point. Oakdale publishes it as 5/5, 2/2 and South Lake Minnetonka as 2-on-2-off, 5-on-5-off.
Which departments work it?
Oakdale and South Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota both publish it on their own recruitment pages.
Put the 5-5 2-2 schedule on your calendar
Save the 5-5 2-2 schedule once, tell BlueShifts the day your cycle starts, and the rest of the year draws itself. Leave, court and the work you take on your own time go in around it.
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