Military Time Converter (24-Hour Clock)

Military time writes the time as four digits on a 24-hour clock with no colon: 0000 is midnight, 1200 is noon and 1845 is 6:45 PM. To convert a PM time, add 12 to the hour; to go back, subtract 12 from any hour above 12. Type a time below to convert it either way.

How to use this military time converter

1. Type a time in any common form: 1845, 18:45, 6:45 pm or 6:45p. The converter works out which format you used.
2. Read the standard (12-hour) time, the four-digit military time, the 24-hour clock form and how to say it.
3. For shift lengths, type an end time in the second box. The duration counts forward, so an end time earlier than the start is treated as the next day.
4. Use Share to copy a link with your times filled in.

How the conversion works

AR 25-50 puts it simply: the first two digits are the hours after midnight and the last two are the minutes, so 1:37 p.m. is 1337. As a formula:

• Military = hour × 100 + minutes, where the hour is 0–11 for AM (12 AM counts as 0) and 12–23 for PM (add 12 to 1–11 PM; noon stays 12).
• Standard hour = military hour − 12 for 13–23 (PM); 00 becomes 12 AM; 12 stays 12 PM; 01–11 are AM unchanged.

Worked examples

Step by step, standard to military: 9:40 PM is a PM time, so add 12 to the hour (9 + 12 = 21), keep the minutes (40) and drop the colon: 2140. Military to standard: 1515 has an hour above 12, so subtract 12 (15 − 12 = 3) and add PM: 3:15 PM. For 0845 the hour is below 12, so you only restore the colon and add AM: 8:45 AM.

Note 0030: half past midnight keeps both leading zeros. A night shift from 2200 to 0630 lasts 8 h 30 min; a day shift from 0730 to 1615 lasts 8 h 45 min.

The 24-hour clock at a glance

Each box is one hour. The top number is the military hour, the bottom is the same hour on a 12-hour clock. Blue boxes are AM, orange are PM: from 13 onward the military hour is always the PM hour plus 12.

Military time chart

Every quarter hour of the day. Find the hour in the left column, then read across; each cell shows the military time and its standard equivalent. For times between quarters (1804, 2152), the minutes carry over unchanged, so only the hour needs converting.

PM times in military time

Afternoon and evening times are the only ones whose digits change. Add 12 to any hour from 1 PM to 11 PM; 12 PM (noon) stays 1200.

For a time like 8:54 PM, convert the hour and keep the minutes: 8 + 12 = 20, so it is 2054. Going the other way, 1500 is 3:00 PM and 1830 is 6:30 PM.

Minutes to decimal hours

Timesheets and payroll systems often want decimal hours instead of minutes. The row below divides each 5-minute step by 60 and rounds to two decimals, so 0730–1615 (8 h 45 min) is entered as 8.75.

Midnight, noon and 2400

Midnight has two military forms. The Navy's Basic Military Requirements manual uses 0000 for the start of the day and 2400 for its end, and NIST recommends the same to avoid confusion. ISO 8601 has allowed 24:00 as the end of a day since its 2022 amendment. The Army's AR 25-50 writes times from 0001 to 2400, so in Army memos the midnight that ends a day is 2400 and 0000 is not used. Noon is always 1200 — the "12 PM" label is the ambiguous one, which is why NIST advises against 12 a.m. and 12 p.m.

How to say military time

Time is spoken in hundreds on the hour: 0100 is "zero one hundred", 2000 is "twenty hundred". Otherwise you say the two pairs of digits: 2315 is "twenty-three fifteen". Leading zeros are pronounced, so 0905 is "zero nine zero five". In writing, AR 25-50 says not to add the word "hours", and uses military time for memorandums but civilian time in letters.

Navy watch times

Aboard ship the day is divided into named watches, most of them 4 hours long; the two dog watches split 1600–2000 so crews rotate instead of standing the same watch every day (NAVEDTRA 14325, ch. 3).

The ship's bell also marks time: one strike for each half hour, up to eight bells, so 0830 is one bell and 1200 is eight bells.

Zulu time: military time in UTC

Military time says nothing about the time zone, so orders, flight plans and weather maps add a letter. "Z", spoken "Zulu", means Coordinated Universal Time. NOAA explains that meteorology runs on this worldwide 24-hour clock, and that Zulu is the military term while UTC is the civilian one. The FAA uses UTC for all its operations and allows "Zulu" to denote it. So 1400Z is 2 PM in UTC, not at your location.

The FAA's conversion table is simple: from standard time, add the zone's hours to get UTC, and during daylight time subtract one hour from that figure. Zulu time itself never changes for daylight saving; only local time does. NOAA gives the example that 00Z is 6:00 p.m. Central Standard Time but 7:00 p.m. Central Daylight Time.

The converter's Zulu line does this for you. Pick a zone, or leave it on your device's zone, which uses the offset your device is on today, including daylight time if it applies now. When the result passes midnight, the date changes too: 2200 Pacific standard is 0600Z the next day.

Seconds, and how pilots say the time

When seconds matter, they go after the four digits with a colon. The FAA's radio examples write a time check as 0929:05. Type a time such as 14:30:05 or 143005 and the converter carries the seconds through each format. Pilots and controllers also say times differently from the Army and Navy: the FAA reads every digit, so 0920 is "zero niner two zero" and 0000 is "zero zero zero zero", while the military style shown above says hours on the hour in hundreds, so 0900 is "zero nine hundred".

Military time vs the 24-hour clock

They are the same clock. The only difference is formatting: military time is written as four digits with no colon (1845), while the 24-hour clock used in timetables and most of the world usually adds a colon (18:45). The converter shows both. Neither needs AM or PM, which is the main reason to use them: "0700" can't be misread as evening, and the ambiguous "12 a.m." and "12 p.m." labels NIST warns about disappear.

What this converter does not do is change time zones. If you are converting between zones, shift the hours first, then convert the format here.

Common mistakes

• Writing 12 AM as 1200. Midnight is 0000 (or 2400 at the end of a day); 1200 is noon.
• Dropping leading zeros. 0730, not 730 — military time is always four digits.
• Subtracting 12 from morning hours. Only hours 13–23 change; 0100–1159 read the same as AM time.
• Getting shift lengths wrong across midnight. Add 24 hours when the end time is smaller than the start.

Working out pay or leave from those hours? Try the hourly to salary calculator or the PTO accrual calculator, and use days from today for multi-day schedules.

Frequently asked questions

Sources & method

• U.S. Army AR 25-50, para 1–26 — expressing time in correspondence
• U.S. Navy NAVEDTRA 14325 Basic Military Requirements, ch. 3 — military time and watches
• NIST — Times of day FAQs (12 a.m./p.m., 0000/2400)
• ISO 8601-1:2019/Amd 1:2022 — 24:00 as end of day
• FAA Aeronautical Information Manual 4-2-12 — Time: UTC, "Zulu", standard time to UTC table
• NOAA JetStream — Z-time (Coordinated Universal Time)

Results are estimates for general information. Found an error? It helps everyone — see our methodology.