Military Time Converter

How military time works

Military time is the 24-hour clock written as four digits with no colon and no AM or PM. The first two digits are the hours since midnight (00 to 23) and the last two are the minutes. 7:05 in the morning is 0705, and 7:05 in the evening is 1905. Because every hour of the day has its own number, a time can never be mistaken for the same clock time twelve hours away.

Morning times look almost the same as on a 12-hour clock, with a leading zero. From 1 PM on, the hour carries on counting past 12: 1 PM is 1300, 6 PM is 1800 and 11:59 PM is 2359. The two times people most often get wrong are the twelves: 12:00 PM is noon, 1200, and 12:00 AM is midnight, 0000.

Choose the direction, enter a time, and the converter shows the result, the same time with a colon and the way it is usually read aloud. The chart below it lists every hour of the day.

Conversion rules

From a 12-hour time to military time, only the hour changes:

From military time back to a 12-hour time:

H₁₂

the hour on the 12-hour clock (1–12)

H₂₄

the hour on the 24-hour clock (00–23)

Minutes never change. Write the hour as two digits, then the two minute digits: hour 9 and minute 5 become 0905.

Saying it aloud. The common spoken form reads the hour, then the minutes, with “hundred” on the exact hour and a spoken zero for leading zeros: 0600 is “zero six hundred”, 1430 is “fourteen thirty”, 1405 is “fourteen zero five”. “Hours” is often added at the end (“fourteen thirty hours”). Usage varies: some people say “oh” instead of “zero”, and aviation radio reads every digit separately — the US Federal Aviation Administration gives 0920 as “zero niner two zero”.

Worked examples

1. 2:30 PM to military time. It is a PM hour other than 12, so add 12 to the hour: 2 + 12 = 14. Keep the minutes: 1430, said “fourteen thirty (hours)”.
2. 12:30 AM to military time. 12 AM is hour 00, so the answer is 0030, “zero zero thirty”.
3. 1830 to 12-hour time. The hour 18 is after noon, so take away 12: 18 − 12 = 6. The answer is 6:30 PM.
4. 0915 to 12-hour time. Hours 01 to 11 are morning hours and keep their number: 9:15 AM.

Midnight: 0000 or 2400?

On a 24-hour clock the day starts at 0000 and its last minute is 2359, so midnight is normally written 0000, which is 12:00 AM. That is what timetables, computers and this converter use when you convert 12:00 AM.

Some rules also allow 2400 to mean midnight at the end of a day. The US Army’s correspondence regulation (AR 25-50) goes further: it states that military time runs from 0001 to 2400, so in Army memorandums midnight is 2400 and the first minute of the new day is 0001. It also says the word “hours” is not written after the digits. 2400 on one day and 0000 on the next are the same moment; the converter accepts both and reads 2400 as 12:00 AM at the end of the day.

Military time and time zones

Military time is only a way of writing the time of day; it does not say which time zone it is in. A time followed by Z, such as 1430Z, is in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). “Z” is spoken “Zulu”, and the FAA notes that “Zulu” may be used to mean UTC. To change a time between zones, use the time zone converter; to add up durations or find the time between two clock times, use the time calculator or the hours calculator.