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5 on 4 off schedule
Five ten-hour shifts then four days off — a nine-day cycle that buys a long weekend every time round, at the price of never landing on the same days.
Also called: 5-4 rotation
- Shift length
- 10 hours
- Cycle
- 9 days
- Average week
- About 42 hours
- Teams
- 2 or more
What the 5 on 4 off schedule is
Five ten-hour shifts, four days off, nine days from start to repeat.
It is the ten-hour answer to the same question twelve-hour patterns ask: how do you get a real break without cutting the hours? Five tens is fifty hours banked in five days, and the four-day break comes out of that.
Some agencies run it at ten hours and forty minutes rather than a flat ten, which brings the average closer to a standard week.
How the cycle runs
One nine-day cycle:
Set a start day, set the length to 9 days, and paint each one. This pattern walks, so each time round it lands on different weekdays — which the app works out for you.
Start day: 1 September 2026Days: 9
Day shiftNight shift24-hour tourDay off
Set the template once. Your days show up on every month after it.
September 2026
Print this rotation (PDF) One page — the cycle above, and a blank grid for your own dates.
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.
Weekends off on this rotation
This cycle is 9 days, which does not divide by seven — so it drifts through the week and every squad gets much the same share. Around 16 to 18 full weekends a year, wherever you sit in it.
A year on this rotation: 18 full weekends off, spread through the calendar. A weekend counts only when both the Saturday and the Sunday are free. All 21 rotations compared →
The four-day break, every nine days
Four consecutive days off arrives roughly three times a month. That is more long breaks than a five-and-two ever gives, and long enough to be worth something — travel, a course, a solid run of off-duty work.
The cost is the five-shift run in front of it. Five tens in a row is fifty hours in five days, and the fifth one is felt.
Hours and the work period
Five ten-hour shifts every nine days works out around forty-two hours a week averaged across the cycle, depending on the exact tour length.
Nine days does not divide into seven or fourteen, so the pattern drifts against both the week and most pay periods. What lands in a given pay period varies.
Who works it
Ten-hour agencies wanting a long break in the cycle:
- Municipal police patrol
- Sheriff's patrol divisions
- Investigative units
- Dispatch centres
- Corrections
- Utilities and field services
The trade-off
What works
- Four consecutive days off every nine
- Ten-hour shifts rather than twelves
- More long breaks than a five-and-two
- Overlap at shift change on ten-hour tours
What hurts
- Five shifts in a row before the break
- Nine-day cycle drifts through the week and the pay period
- No fixed weekend
- Harder to plan around than a seven or fourteen-day cycle
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 5 on 4 off?
Around forty-two on ten-hour shifts, averaged across the nine-day cycle.
Does it give a fixed weekend?
No. Nine days does not divide into seven, so the days off move through the week each cycle.
Why ten hours and forty minutes?
Some agencies stretch the tour slightly so five shifts a cycle land closer to a full-time average.
Put the 5 on 4 off schedule on your calendar
Save the 5 on 4 off schedule once, tell BlueShifts the day your cycle starts, and the rest of the year draws itself. The off-duty jobs, the hours and the pay go on top of it.
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