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Panama schedule
Two on, two off, three on, two off, two on, three off. Twelve-hour shifts on a fourteen-day cycle, with crews rotating between days and nights.
Also called: 2-2-3, 2-3-2, 2-2-3-2-2-3, fixed Panama, rotating Panama
- Shift length
- 12 hours
- Cycle
- 14 days
- Average week
- 42 hours
- Teams
- 4
What the Panama schedule is
Panama is the best known name for the 2-2-3 rotation. Crews work two days on, two off, three on, two off, two on, then three off, and the whole thing resets every fourteen days.
It exists to cover a post twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, with four crews and no gaps. Because the cycle is exactly two weeks long, it lands on the same days of the week every time — which is the single feature people like most about it. Every other weekend is a three-day weekend, permanently.
The name gets used loosely. Panama, Pitman and 2-2-3 all describe the same on-off cadence. What separates them in practice is whether crews change between days and nights, which is covered below.
How the cycle runs
One full fourteen-day cycle, from the crew's point of view:
Set a start day, set the length to 14 days, and paint each one. Only the first cycle is painted — the app repeats it from there.
Start day: 30 August 2026Days: 14
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.
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 26.
A squad that does well on this rotation: 26 full weekends across a year. A weekend counts only when both the Saturday and the Sunday are free. All 21 rotations compared →
Days and nights
Under a true Panama, crews rotate between day and night tours — commonly swapping after each twenty-eight day block, though some agencies rotate at the end of every fourteen-day cycle and others after several months.
That slow rotation is deliberate. Flipping between days and nights every couple of shifts is far harder on sleep than staying on one tour for a month at a time. If your agency never rotates crews between days and nights, what you are working is closer to a Pitman.
Slow rotation Panama
When people say slow rotation Panama, they mean the version where a crew holds one tour for a full twenty-eight day block — four complete cycles — before flipping to the other. The 2-2-3 rhythm never changes; only the time of day does, and only once a month.
It is the most common arrangement in policing, and the reason is sleep. A month is long enough for a night crew to build a sleep pattern and keep it, which is impossible on a fast rotation. The cost is the changeover itself: the week you flip is the hardest week of the month, and it arrives on a schedule you can see coming.
Faster variants exist. Some agencies swap tours at the end of each fourteen-day cycle, some at the end of a quarter. All of them are still Panama — save the block length your agency actually runs and the calendar handles the flip for you.
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.
Hours and overtime
The cycle produces seven twelve-hour shifts every fourteen days — eighty-four hours a fortnight, averaging forty-two hours a week.
That average hides an alternation officers know well: one week is thirty-six hours, the next is forty-eight. Where the overtime threshold falls in that pattern depends on your agency's work period and your contract, which is exactly why keeping your own hour count matters.
Who works it
Panama shows up anywhere a post has to be covered around the clock:
- Police patrol divisions and sheriff's offices
- Dispatch and communications centers
- Corrections and detention
- Hospital nursing units
- Manufacturing and refining
- Security and campus policing
Departments that publish this rotation
Every one of these is taken from the employer's own document — a recruitment page, a class specification or a collective agreement — not from a survey or a job board. The link goes to what that agency pays.
- Alexandria Police Department, LA — Louisiana Revised Statute 33:2213(N) sets this department's cycle by name: the city of Alexandria "may establish and implement a fourteen-day….
- Auburn Hills Police Department, MI — The City lists the schedule with the money on its own recruiting page: "Rotating 12-hour shifts with every other weekend off", alongside 2026 top….
- Clark County Sheriff's Office, WI — Clark County runs four rotating 12-hour shifts on a 2-3-2 rotation — two on, two off, three on, two off, two on, three off.
- Columbus Police Department, GA — Columbus assigns patrol officers to a day or evening watch on twelve-hour shifts and states the rotation itself: “Working shifts are based on the….
- Elmore County Sheriff's Office, ID — Panama 12-hour shifts (every other Fri-Sun off).
- Fairfax County Sheriff's Office, VA — The Sheriff's Office answers it in its own recruiting FAQ: deputies begin their careers in the Adult Detention Center, which runs 12.5-hour shifts….
- Frederick County Sheriff's Office, MD — The Sheriff's Office Career FAQ prints the patrol fortnight: "Patrol deputies and supervisors work 12-hour shifts on a two-week (14-day) pay cycle.
- Frisco Police Department, TX — The Department's own recruitment FAQ answers it by weekday: patrol officers work 12-hour shifts and 80 hours in each two-week pay period, working….
- Gooding County Sheriff's Office, ID — Shifts are 12 hours long and you will work 14 days during a 28 day pay period.
- Greenfield Police Department, IN — The Department's own Police Officers page prints the fortnight by weekday: "Officers work 12 hour shifts.
- La Vista Police Department, NE — La Vista officers work 12-hour day or night shifts with a three-day weekend — Friday, Saturday and Sunday — every other weekend, and bid a year in….
- Lafayette Police Department, IN — The City states it on the same page as the pay: "Patrol officers work 12 hour shifts with rotating days off.
- Laurel Police Department, MT — Laurel patrol officers work 12-hour shifts on a 2-2-3 rotation, which the department says provides an excellent work and family life balance.
- Lighthouse Point Police Department, FL — The City publishes the patrol schedule on its own police officer benefits page: patrol officers are assigned to 12-hour shifts with twenty-six….
14 more agencies on this site publish the same pattern.
The trade-off
What works
- The cycle repeats every fourteen days, so your days off land on the same weekdays forever
- A three-day weekend every other week, built in
- Never more than three shifts in a row
- Easy to plan around months ahead
What hurts
- Twelve-hour shifts are long, and the third one in a row is felt
- Alternating 36 and 48 hour weeks complicate pay and overtime math
- Rotating between days and nights disrupts sleep, even done slowly
- Court appearances often fall on your days off
Put it on your calendar
Two on, two off, three on — and the block you worked last week is the block you are off this week. Counting that out on a paper calendar is where the mistakes happen.
Save the fourteen days once and it runs forward as far as you want to look, with the day and night halves in the right place.
Common questions
Are Panama and Pitman the same schedule?
They share the same 2-2-3 on-off cadence. The usual distinction is that Panama rotates crews between day and night tours, while Pitman keeps a crew on one tour permanently.
How many hours a week is a Panama schedule?
Forty-two on average — alternating between a 36-hour week and a 48-hour week across the fourteen-day cycle.
Why is it called Panama?
The name is industry shorthand rather than an official standard, which is why the same pattern travels under Panama, Pitman and 2-2-3 depending on who you ask.
Put the Panama schedule on your calendar
Save the Panama 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.
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