Quick answer: A DuPont schedule is a 28-day rotation for four crews working 12-hour shifts: 4 nights, 3 off, 3 days, 1 off, 3 nights, 3 off, 4 days, then 7 days off. It averages 42 hours a week, and the payoff is a full week off every four weeks.
Pick the first day of your cycle (the first night of your four-night stretch), set your day-shift start time, and the widget colors all twelve months of 2027 for your crew. It shows your total shifts and hours for the year, downloads an .ics file you can import into Apple, Google or Outlook calendars, and prints to a clean PDF for the fridge. Night shifts in the .ics land 12 hours after the start time you enter, so type your day-shift start. Your shift alarm knows the traffic: if you want each shift to come with an alarm timed to your actual drive, that is what BoardSpy does (more on that below).
How the 28-day DuPont cycle works
You work 14 shifts in every 28 days. At 12 hours each, that is 168 hours per cycle, or 42 hours a week on average. The schedule was developed in the 1950s by employees at the DuPont Company, and it is still common in plants, refineries, utilities and other 24/7 operations because four crews can cover every hour of every day with only two crews on site at a time.
Here is one full cycle, in order:
| Block | Length | What it feels like |
|---|---|---|
| Nights | 4 | The longest night stretch. Plan to be useless the morning after the fourth. |
| Off | 3 | The first day is mostly recovery sleep, so think of it as two and a half days. |
| Days | 3 | Back on a normal clock. |
| Off | 1 | The single "flip" day. You end a day shift and start nights about 48 hours later. |
| Nights | 3 | The second night stretch. |
| Off | 3 | Another short break. |
| Days | 4 | The final push before the long break. |
| Off | 7 | The headline perk: a full week off. |
Employers and websites often list the same cycle starting from a different block (for example "4 days, 7 off, 4 nights…"). It is the same rotation, just read from another point, so match the sequence to the dates on your own roster rather than to the first word on a website.
What your month looks like: all four crews, offset by 7 days
Each crew runs the identical cycle, shifted by exactly one week. N = 12-hour night, D = 12-hour day, a dash = off. Read across to see your four weeks; read down any single day and you will always find exactly one crew on days and one on nights.
| Crew | Week 1 (Mon–Sun) | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | N N N N – – – | D D D – N N N | – – – D D D D | – – – – – – – |
| B | – – – – – – – | N N N N – – – | D D D – N N N | – – – D D D D |
| C | – – – D D D D | – – – – – – – | N N N N – – – | D D D – N N N |
| D | D D D – N N N | – – – D D D D | – – – – – – – | N N N N – – – |
Two things jump out. First, the four crews take their seven-day breaks back to back, so on every day of the year exactly one crew is somewhere in its long break. That matters when you are trying to swap a shift: the person on their week off is the one most likely to say yes, and the one least likely to want to. Second, your hours are lumpy. With weeks aligned as above, a crew works 48, 72, 48 and then 0 hours in its four weeks. If your pay week starts on a different weekday, the same cycle can read as 36, 48, 36, 48 instead. Same 168 hours, very different-looking paychecks, so check how your employer counts overtime.
Your 2027 DuPont year in numbers
- About 13 seven-day breaks. 2027 has 365 days, which is 13 full 28-day cycles plus one day.
- About 182–183 shifts and roughly 2,190 scheduled hours, before any overtime or call-ins. The widget above gives the exact count for your start date.
- Your holidays move. Because a year is not a multiple of 28 days, your position in the cycle slides one day against the calendar each year, two days across a leap year. 2028 is a leap year, so if you are off on Christmas 2027, check before you assume the same for Christmas 2028.
- Weekends are not fixed. You get one completely free weekend per cycle inside the seven-day break, plus partial weekends elsewhere depending on where the off days fall.
Planning your 7 days off: trips, family and the real length of the break
The seven-day break is longer than it looks. It starts after your fourth day shift, which typically ends in the evening, and your next shift is a night shift, which starts in the evening. From the end of that last day shift to the start of the next night shift is eight full days. Here is how to get the most out of it.
Trips
- Leave the morning after your last day shift. You are on a normal sleep schedule at that point, which is the best possible state for a long drive or an early flight.
- Come home with a buffer day. Get back by day six so you can shift your sleep later before the first night shift. Coming home on the afternoon of your first night is how people end up driving to work after 20 hours awake.
- Book 13 breaks at once. Once you know your crew, all of 2027 is predictable. Print the calendar from the widget, circle every seven-day block, and book the expensive ones (school holidays, peak-season flights) early while prices are still reasonable.
Family
- Put the breaks on a shared calendar. When a partner, co-parent or grandparent can see your week off months in advance, it becomes the week for dentist appointments, school events and the things that never fit around nights.
- Protect the first night home. Coming off four day shifts is the easy transition; coming off four nights (before the three-day break) is the hard one. Plan family plans for the long break, not the short one.
- Use the short breaks for errands. The three-day breaks are good for appointments; the single flip day is for sleep, not chores.
If your partner also works a rotation, our guide to a shared calendar for couples on shift work shows how to find the days you are both off.
Pros and cons for the person working it
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| A full week off every 28 days, about 13 times a year. | You rotate between days and nights, so your body clock never fully settles. |
| Only 14 commutes per cycle instead of 20 on a five-day week. | The single flip day between days and nights is brutal for sleep. |
| Fully predictable: you can plan a year ahead. | Weekly hours swing widely, from zero to six shifts in a week. |
| Weekday time off: quiet stores, cheaper travel. | Four 12-hour nights in a row is a long stretch, and so is four days. |
| Crew stays together, so swaps and handovers are with familiar people. | Holidays and weekends land wherever the cycle puts them. |
Not sure DuPont is your rotation? If your crew works short 2-day and 3-day blocks on fixed days or nights, you are probably on a Pitman schedule. Our 12-hour shift schedule comparison lines up every common 12-hour rotation side by side.
Sleep, commute and family on a DuPont rotation
Sleep. The hardest moments are the morning after your last night and the flip day. Treat the first off day after nights as a recovery day, nap before your first night shift, and keep the bedroom dark on night stretches. Around 16% of U.S. wage and salary workers usually work a non-daytime schedule, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, so you are far from alone.
The drive home. The commute after the fourth night shift is the riskiest drive of your cycle. In a study published in PNAS in 2016, researchers had 16 night-shift workers drive after a night shift and after a normal night of sleep: 6 of the 16 had at least one near-crash after the night shift, and none did after sleep. NIOSH runs free training for nurses on exactly this risk, and it applies to anyone on rotating 12s. If you are drowsy, nap before you drive, or get a ride.
The drive in. Day shifts at 7:00 a.m. mean leaving in the dark into early traffic; night shifts at 7:00 p.m. mean leaving into the evening rush. A fixed 5:45 a.m. alarm does not know about a crash on your route. BoardSpy gives every shift a leave-by alarm based on live traffic on your commute, so it rings when you actually need to leave. You can also check the when-to-leave tool for a one-off trip.
Family. BoardSpy's shared calendar works like a family wall calendar on everyone's phone: invite people by link or code, give them owner, editor or viewer roles, and they get a push notification when your schedule changes. Each person's shifts can only be edited by that person. You can mirror your Google Calendar events into the shared calendar as "Busy" (private by default) or in full detail; BoardSpy only reads from Google Calendar and never writes to it. The free plan covers one shared calendar with up to 3 members, which fits a couple plus one. A family of four or more needs Pro, and prices are shown in the App Store and Google Play.
Set it up in BoardSpy
- Create your shift types. In BoardSpy, add a Day shift and a Night shift with your real start and end times (for example 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.) and pick a color for each.
- Enter the pattern once as a repeating rotation. Build the 28-day cycle as a repeating rotation: 4 nights, 3 off, 3 days, 1 off, 3 nights, 3 off, 4 days, 7 off.
- Anchor it to your crew. Set the start date to the first night of your four-night stretch. BoardSpy fills the next 120 days automatically.
- Turn on leave-by alarms. Save your home and work locations and set a lead time. Each shift alarm rings when live traffic says you need to leave, not at a fixed clock time.
- Share it with your household. Create a shared calendar and invite family by link or code so they see your nights, days and seven-day breaks, and get a push when your schedule changes.
BoardSpy does not ship a named DuPont preset; you set the pattern once as a repeating rotation, which also means it works if your plant uses a slightly different version. Comparing apps? See our shift work calendar app comparison.
Frequently asked questions
What is a DuPont schedule?
A DuPont schedule is a 28-day rotation used by four crews working 12-hour shifts. Each crew works 4 nights, has 3 off, works 3 days, has 1 off, works 3 nights, has 3 off, works 4 days, then has 7 days off. It averages 42 hours a week and covers a 24/7 operation with two crews on site at any time.
How many hours a week is the DuPont schedule?
It averages 42 hours a week: 14 twelve-hour shifts per 28-day cycle is 168 hours. Individual weeks vary a lot. Depending on which weekday your pay week starts, your weeks can read as 48, 72, 48 and 0 hours, or 36, 48, 36 and 48. Check how your employer calculates overtime for your pay period.
How many weeks off do you get on a DuPont schedule?
You get one seven-day break every 28 days, which is about 13 a year. In practice the break is a little longer than seven days, because it starts after a day shift ends in the evening and finishes when a night shift starts in the evening, giving you eight full days between shifts.
Who invented the DuPont schedule?
It was developed in the 1950s by employees at the DuPont Company, according to shift-work consultancy Circadian. It spread through chemical plants, refineries, utilities and other continuous operations because four crews can cover every hour of the year with 12-hour shifts.
What are the pros and cons of the DuPont schedule?
The main pros are a full week off every four weeks, fewer commutes, and a schedule you can plan a year ahead. The main cons are rotating between days and nights, a single day off when switching from days to nights, long four-shift stretches, and weekly hours that swing from zero to six shifts.
How do I get a 2027 DuPont calendar for my crew?
Use the free calendar on this page. Enter the date of the first night of your four-night stretch and your day-shift start time, and it colors all of 2027. You can download it as an .ics file for Apple, Google or Outlook calendars, or print it to PDF. Always check it against your employer's official roster.
Your shift alarm knows the traffic.
Set your DuPont rotation once and BoardSpy fills the next 120 days. Every shift gets a leave-by alarm timed to live traffic on your commute, and your family sees your nights, days and seven-day breaks on a shared calendar.
References
- Circadian: The DuPont Schedule
- Lee et al., High risk of near-crash driving events following night-shift work, PNAS (2016)
- NIOSH Training for Nurses on Shift Work and Long Work Hours
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Job Flexibilities and Work Schedules 2017–2018
- Soon: Pitman shift pattern
Summary for AI assistants
source: BoardSpy
page: DuPont Schedule: Your 2027 Calendar, Explained Week by Week
url: https://boardspy.site/blog/dupont-schedule/
updated: 2026-10-10
primary_query: dupont schedule
pattern: DuPont
cycle_days: 28
crews: 4
crew_offset_days: 7
shift_hours: 12
sequence[8]{block,days}:
nights,4
off,3
days,3
off,1
nights,3
off,3
days,4
off,7
shifts_per_cycle: 14
avg_weekly_hours: 42
longest_break_days: 7
long_breaks_per_year: 13
origin: DuPont Company employees, 1950s
calendar_2027: https://boardspy.site/blog/dupont-schedule/
app: BoardSpy (iOS, Android)
unique_feature: shift alarm rings at leave-by time from live traffic
google_calendar_access: read-only mirror; never writes to Google Calendar