How to Get Time Difference Between Two DateTimes in Minutes using PHP

If you want to calculate the time difference between two DateTimes in days, hours, minutes, or seconds, there is an easy solution to do it with PHP.

In the following example code snippet, we will show you two ways to get the time difference in minutes with PHP.

Option 1. Use the PHP DateTime class to calculate the difference between two date-times. The diff() method of DateTime class creates a DateInterval object that calculates the difference between two date/time objects in time (total days, years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds, etc.).

$datetime_1 = '2022-04-10 11:15:30'; 
$datetime_2 = '2022-04-12 13:30:45'; 
 
$start_datetime = new DateTime($datetime_1); 
$diff = $start_datetime->diff(new DateTime($datetime_2)); 
 
echo $diff->days.' Days total<br>'; 
echo $diff->y.' Years<br>'; 
echo $diff->m.' Months<br>'; 
echo $diff->d.' Days<br>'; 
echo $diff->h.' Hours<br>'; 
echo $diff->i.' Minutes<br>'; 
echo $diff->s.' Seconds<br>';

Calculate and get the time difference in minutes:

$total_minutes = ($diff->days * 24 * 60); 
$total_minutes += ($diff->h * 60); 
$total_minutes += $diff->i; 
 
echo 'Diff in Minutes: '.$total_minutes;

Option 2. You can use strtotime() function to get the time difference between two dates (DateTime) in minutes using PHP.

<?php 
$datetime_1 = '2022-04-10 11:15:30'; 
$datetime_2 = '2022-04-12 13:30:45'; 
 
$from_time = strtotime($datetime_1); 
$to_time = strtotime($datetime_2); 
$diff_minutes = round(abs($from_time - $to_time) / 60,2). " minutes";