Free shift calendar
6 on 2 off shift calendar 2028
The 6 on 2 off pattern is an 8 day cycle: six 8 hour shifts, two days off, repeat. A quarter of the days are free, which is fewer than a Monday to Friday job gets. It is the continuous-process rotation: four crews on this cycle cover three 8 hour shifts around the clock, which is why paper mills, refineries, mines and steel plants have run the 6-2 rotating schedule for decades, moving each crew from days to afternoons to nights as the cycles go by.
This page lays out the whole of 2028 for a crew whose first block starts January 1: every shift, every off pair, and the weekends that survive. There is a days grid, stats for the days and nights variants, and a calendar file you can import in one tap.
Suits plants that need four crews on 8 hour shifts around the clock, and people who want the overtime built in. Two days off in eight is fewer than a Monday to Friday job gets, so it wears people down.
Quick facts
- Cycle length
- 8 days
- Shifts per cycle
- 6 on, 2 off
- Shift length
- 8 hours
- Hours a week
- 42.3 on average
- Crews for 24/7 cover
- 4
- Full weekends off in 2028
- 7
6 on 2 off, days, 2028
The grid shows a crew whose cycle starts January 1, 2028; other crews run the same rotation offset by a few days. The 8 day cycle does not divide evenly into weeks, so the rotation drifts through the weekdays. Other crews get a similar year, just shifted. To line the pattern up with your real start date, use the interactive shift pattern visualizer.
The 2028 numbers
Days
Full weekends off
7
Jan 1 crew; all crews: 6.6 on average (6 to 7)
Night shifts
0
276 day shifts
Recovery days
0
no night shifts to sleep off
Longest stretch
6
consecutive shifts
Nights
Full weekends off
0
Jan 1 crew; all crews: 0
Night shifts
276
0 day shifts
Recovery days
45
first day off after nights
Longest stretch
6
consecutive shifts
How many hours is 6 on 2 off in 2028?
Worked in full, 6 on 2 off in 2028 comes to 276 shifts of 8 hours: 2,208 hours, an average of 42.3 hours a week across the whole year. The nights variant works the same dates and the same 2,208 hours; the difference is that every one of them runs overnight. These figures assume every scheduled shift is worked: no overtime, no swaps, no sick days, no leave.
Put 6 on 2 off 2028 in your calendar
One file, every shift of the year, ready for Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, or Outlook. Shifts import with default times: day shifts 7am to 3pm, night shifts 7pm into the next morning (3am). Edit the times after import if your site runs different hours.
That file is the textbook rotation. Your real roster has swaps, overtime and cover shifts that no pattern predicts, so photograph it with Lumical and every shift lands in Apple Calendar. We make Lumical, so read this with that in mind.
Get Lumical on the App StorePaste this into your page. The credit line sits outside the frame on purpose, so it stays a real link.
A perfect rotation fits in a calendar file. A real roster does not.
Swaps, overtime, and holiday cover break the pattern. Reading a real roster is what the Lumical app does: photograph it and every shift lands in your calendar, overnights included. We make it, so weigh the recommendation accordingly.
Common questions
How does the 6 on 2 off schedule work?
Six 8 hour shifts in a row, then two days off. The cycle is 8 days, one longer than the week, so each block starts one weekday later than the last and the whole pattern realigns with the calendar every 56 days.
How many days off does 6 on 2 off give per year?
A quarter of the year: 90 days off on paper in 2028. That is fewer than Monday to Friday, which rests two days in seven. What the pattern gives back is the shift length: 8 hour shifts keep the average week at 42.3 hours.
How many full weekends off does 6 on 2 off give?
The off pair covers Saturday and Sunday only when it lands exactly on them, which the 56 day drift makes happen once in eight weeks. In 2028 a crew starting January 1 gets 7 full weekends on days, and crews average 6.6. Nights average 0, because a Friday night shift runs into Saturday morning.
How many hours a year is 6 on 2 off?
2,208 hours in 2028: 276 shifts of 8 hours, averaging 42.3 a week. With 12 hour shifts the same cycle averages 63 hours a week, which is why the 12 hour version only turns up on camp jobs that pay the overtime.
Why does 6 on 2 off feel harder than the numbers suggest?
Six shifts in a row, and the break never lasts more than two days. On nights the first of the two is a recovery day: the nights variant has 45 of them in 2028, cutting its usable days off to 45. That is about one real day off a week.
How many days will you work on 6 on 2 off in 2028?
276 shifts, which comes to 2,208 hours at 8 hours each. That leaves 90 days off. The count moves by a shift or two depending on where your crew sits in the cycle on January 1.
How many crews does 6 on 2 off need to cover 24 hours a day?
4. The cycle runs 8 days with 6 of them worked, so keeping one position filled every day takes 1.3 crews, and a 8 hours shift needs 3 positions to fill the day.
How do I get this calendar into Apple Calendar?
Download the .ics file on this page and open it on your iPhone or Mac. Apple Calendar offers to add the whole year in one go. That covers the textbook rotation. A real roster has swaps, overtime and cover shifts, and for that we make Lumical: photograph the roster and every shift lands in Apple Calendar. We make it, so read that with the obvious bias in mind.