Military Time Converter and Chart (24-Hour Clock)

How military time works

Military time is the 24-hour clock written as four digits with no colon and no AM or PM. The day starts at 0000 (midnight) and runs to 2359 (one minute before the next midnight). Hours 00 to 11 are the morning, hours 12 to 23 are the afternoon and evening. Because every time of day has exactly one label, there's no chance of mixing up 7 AM and 7 PM, which is why the military, hospitals, airlines, police, and 911 dispatch all use it.

The rest of the world simply calls this the 24-hour clock and usually writes it with a colon (19:30). In the US it's "military time", and people mostly meet it in a nursing shift schedule, a flight itinerary, a new job's timesheet, or a phone set to 24-hour mode.

Converting in your head

Standard to military: for AM times, keep the hour and pad to two digits (7:15 AM becomes 0715). For PM times, add 12 to the hour (7:15 PM becomes 1915). The two exceptions are the 12 o'clock hours: 12:xx AM becomes 00xx (12:30 AM is 0030) and 12:xx PM stays 12xx (12:30 PM is 1230).

Military to standard: if the hour is 00, it's 12-something AM. If it's 01 to 11, it's AM as written. If it's 12, it's PM. If it's 13 to 23, subtract 12 and call it PM: 1645 is 4:45 PM, 2210 is 10:10 PM. The fastest mental trick for afternoon hours is "subtract 2, then drop the 1": 17 minus 2 is 15, drop the 1, 5 PM. It works for 13 through 21. For 22 and 23 just subtract 12.

How to say it out loud

On the hour, say the hour followed by "hundred": 0700 is "zero seven hundred" (or "oh seven hundred"), 1300 is "thirteen hundred", 2000 is "twenty hundred". Adding "hours" at the end is standard in the military and optional elsewhere.

With minutes, say the hour and the minutes as two numbers: 1930 is "nineteen thirty", 0845 is "zero eight forty-five", 1405 is "fourteen zero five". Leading zeros are spoken, so 0005 is "zero zero zero five". Never say "nineteen hundred thirty"; that's a common civilian slip. The converter shows the spoken form for any time you enter.

Midnight: 0000 or 2400?

Both exist, and they mean different ends of the same day. 0000 is midnight at the start of a day, and 2400 is midnight at the end of it. A shift running "Monday 1600 to 2400" ends at the stroke of midnight going into Tuesday, while "Tuesday 0000" is the same instant labeled from the next day's side. Most digital clocks never show 2400; they roll from 2359 to 0000. Many organizations avoid the ambiguity entirely by using 2359 or 0001 for deadlines. The converter accepts 2400 and shows it as 12:00 AM.

Worked examples from real schedules

A nurse's shift listed as 1900-0730 runs from 7:00 PM to 7:30 AM the next morning, 12.5 hours. A flight departing 0615 leaves at 6:15 AM; one landing at 2340 arrives at 11:40 PM. A timesheet showing in 0852, out 1731 means you worked from 8:52 AM to 5:31 PM. For the length of that shift, use the Time Duration Calculator rather than doing base-60 subtraction by hand.

Military time doesn't include a time zone by itself. The armed forces add a letter suffix for that, like 1400Z for UTC ("Zulu") or 1400R for US Eastern Standard ("Romeo"). If you're coordinating across zones, pair this with the Time Zone Converter.

Mistakes to avoid

Writing 12:00 AM as 1200: that's noon. Midnight is 0000. Forgetting the leading zero: 730 is ambiguous on some forms that expect four digits, so write 0730. Adding a colon on official military paperwork: the military form is 1930, not 19:30, though hospitals and airlines accept either. Converting 1:00 PM to 0100: PM hours always add 12, so it's 1300.

Keep the chart on this page bookmarked. It covers every hour on the hour, and the converter handles every minute in between, in both directions, as you type.