Military time chart with converter: 24-hour to 12-hour time

This military time chart lists all 24 hours of the day next to the standard 12-hour time and the way each one is spoken. Below the chart is a two-way military time converter that handles minutes, so 1830 becomes 6:30 PM and 7:45 AM becomes 0745. The rest of the page covers how to read military time, the midnight question (0000 or 2400), time zones and Zulu time, and why timesheets and shift schedules so often use the 24-hour clock in the first place.

Military time chart: 0000 to 2300

Each row gives the military time, the same time on a 12-hour clock, and how to say it. On the hour, the pattern is the hour followed by “hundred”. Hours before 1000 start with a spoken “zero”.

The civilian 24-hour clock chart is the same list with a colon: 00:00, 01:00, 13:00, 23:00. Time clocks, hospital charts and transit schedules usually write it that way. The numbers and the conversions are identical.

Military time converter (with minutes)

Type a military or 24-hour time in the first box to get standard time. Use the second box to go from a 12-hour time to military time. Both update as you type.

How to read military time

Military time is four digits. The first two are the hour on a 24-hour clock, from 00 to 23. The last two are the minutes, from 00 to 59. There is no colon and no AM or PM, because the hour already tells you which half of the day it is.

1. Split the digits into hours and minutes. 1545 is 15 hours and 45 minutes.
2. Check the hour. 00 is the midnight hour (12:xx AM). 01 to 11 are morning hours and read the same as AM time, without the leading zero. 12 is the noon hour (12:xx PM). 13 to 23 are afternoon and evening hours: subtract 12 and add PM.
3. Keep the minutes. 1545 becomes 3:45 PM. 0920 becomes 9:20 AM. 0015 becomes 12:15 AM.

To go the other way, reverse it. AM hours from 1 to 9 take a leading zero (7:45 AM is 0745). 10 and 11 AM stay as they are (1120). Noon stays 12 (1230 is 12:30 PM). PM hours from 1 to 11 add 12 (6:30 PM is 1830). The only odd case is the midnight hour: 12:30 AM is 0030, not 1230.

Spoken military time reads the hour, then the minutes. On the hour, the hour is followed by “hundred”: 0600 is “zero six hundred”, 1400 is “fourteen hundred”. With minutes, say both pairs: 0745 is “zero seven forty-five”, 1830 is “eighteen thirty”. Minutes under 10 keep their zero: 2105 is “twenty-one zero five”. In the US military the word “hours” is often added at the end (“eighteen hundred hours”), and in civilian settings most people simply read the digits. Some people say “oh” instead of “zero” (“oh seven hundred”); the military prefers “zero” because it is harder to mishear on a radio.

Midnight: 0000 or 2400?

Both exist, and they mean different things. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in its times-of-day FAQ, describes the 24-hour convention as 0000 for midnight at the beginning of a day and 2400 for the end of a day. 2400 on Tuesday and 0000 on Wednesday are the same instant; the number you write says which day you are talking about.

In practice, almost every clock, time clock, scheduling tool and payroll system runs the day from 0000 to 2359 and never displays 2400. Even the Navy and Marine Corps correspondence manual (SECNAV M-5216.5), which sets the writing style for official Navy documents, is widely reported to have moved from a 0001 to 2400 day to a 0000 to 2359 day in its 2015 edition. The safe habit for a workplace is:

• Write midnight as 0000 and attach the date (“Wed 0000”). Never type 2400 into a time clock; most will reject it.
• If a paper schedule needs to show a shift ending at midnight, “2200 to 2400” is understandable, but the time record should show the clock-out at 0000 on the next day.
• Avoid “12 AM” and “12 PM” altogether. NIST calls them ambiguous and recommends writing 11:59 PM or 12:01 AM when the day matters, or using the 24-hour clock. Noon is 1200 and midnight is 0000; that is simpler than remembering which 12 is which.

Minutes stay the same

The military time chart above lists whole hours only, because only the hour changes between the two systems. Whatever the minutes are in 12-hour time, they are the same in military time, and the other way round. That is why converting a time with minutes is no harder than converting an hour:

The one thing to watch is a time that was written without its leading zero. “745” on a handwritten time card means 0745, which is 7:45 AM. If a time clock has already applied a rounding rule, convert the rounded time, not the raw punch; the time card calculator explains the federal rounding rules and how they interact with clock-in and clock-out times.

Time zones and Zulu time

Military time on its own says nothing about the time zone; 1800 in Austin is 1800 Central time. When a message needs to work across zones, the military adds a letter. Z stands for Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the time at the prime meridian, and is spoken as “Zulu” from the phonetic alphabet, so 1800Z is “eighteen hundred Zulu”. The National Weather Service writes all of its forecast times this way, with a Z after the hour, and describes Zulu as the same thing as UTC for practical purposes.

To convert Zulu to US local time, subtract the zone’s offset. On standard time (early November to mid-March) Eastern is UTC−5, Central is UTC−6, Mountain is UTC−7 and Pacific is UTC−8; on daylight saving time each offset is one hour smaller. So 1800Z on November 12, 2026 is 1300 Eastern, 1200 Central, 1100 Mountain and 1000 Pacific. For most employers this only matters for teams split across states or for dispatch, aviation and logistics work that uses UTC in its paperwork. Time clock software records each punch in the location’s local zone, which is what payroll needs; pick one zone per worksite and keep schedules and timesheets in it.

Why timesheets and shift schedules use 24-hour time

The 24-hour clock became the default for hospitals, restaurants, warehouses and anyone who runs a night shift because it removes the single most common timesheet error: the wrong AM or PM. “10:00 to 6:30” could be a day shift of 8.5 hours or a night shift of 8.5 hours, and a missing or misread “PM” turns one into the other. “2200 to 0630” can only be one thing.

It also makes the arithmetic across midnight straightforward. Take a night shift that starts at 2200 and ends at 0630 with no unpaid break:

1. From 2200 to midnight (2400) is 2 hours.
2. From 0000 to 0630 is 6 hours 30 minutes.
3. Total: 8 hours 30 minutes, or 8.5 hours.

A faster version is to add 24 to the end time whenever it is earlier than the start time: 0630 becomes 3030, and 3030 − 2200 = 830, which is 8 hours 30 minutes. Pay the shift from that total. If the worker earns a night premium for those hours, the shift differential guide shows how to add it to the regular rate before computing overtime.

A day shift converts the same way. At Northfield Coffee in Austin, Jordan Lee opens at 0530 and clocks out at 1345 with a 30-minute unpaid lunch. 1345 − 0530 = 8 hours 15 minutes; minus 30 minutes is 7 hours 45 minutes, or 7.75 hours. Written as 5:30 AM to 1:45 PM, the figures are identical; the 24-hour version is just harder to get wrong on a form that dozens of people fill in each week.

There is a records reason as well. The US Department of Labor’s Fact Sheet #21 lists what employers must record for non-exempt employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), including the time and day the workweek begins, the hours worked each day and the total hours worked each workweek. Employers may use any timekeeping method as long as it is complete and accurate, and must keep payroll records for three years and the time cards those records are based on for two years. A time record that leaves no doubt whether a shift was day or night is easier to total, audit and defend. If your team still uses paper, start from our free timesheet templates, and whichever time format you pick, use it on the whole card.

From 24-hour time to decimal hours

Payroll multiplies hours by a rate, so the hours and minutes from a time card have to become a decimal. The rule is decimal hours = hours + minutes ÷ 60. The 8 hours 30 minutes from the night shift above is 8 + 30 ÷ 60 = 8.5 hours. Jordan’s 7 hours 45 minutes is 7 + 45 ÷ 60 = 7.75 hours. A less tidy figure such as 8 hours 20 minutes is 8.33 hours, and that one is a repeating decimal, so convert the week’s total minutes once rather than rounding each day.

Two tools on this site handle the rest. The hours to decimal calculator converts a single figure either way and includes a full 1 to 60 minute chart. The time card calculator takes a week of clock-in and clock-out times, including shifts that end after midnight, subtracts unpaid breaks and works out gross pay with time and a half for hours over 40, the federal overtime rule explained in how to calculate overtime. Both accept 24-hour times directly.

Common mistakes with military time

• Adding 12 to a morning time. Only PM hours from 1 to 11 add 12. 9:00 AM is 0900, not 2100.
• Treating 12 PM as 0000. Noon is 1200. Midnight is 0000. If a schedule says “12:00” with no AM or PM, ask.
• Reading 00xx as 12:xx PM. 0030 is 12:30 AM, half an hour after midnight. The 00 hour is always the first hour of the day.
• Writing 2400 in a time clock. Use 0000 on the next day. Most systems reject 2400, and a few will record it as 0000 on the same day, which moves the punch back 24 hours.
• Dropping the leading zero. Say it however you like, but write 0745, not 745. Four digits are what make the format unambiguous.
• Mixing formats on one record. A card with 0730 in one row and 4:15 in the next invites a 12-hour mistake. Pick one format for the whole card and the whole team.
• Crediting an overnight shift to the wrong day. A shift from 2200 Saturday to 0630 Sunday straddles the workweek if your week starts Sunday at 0000. Your policy should say which workweek those hours count toward, and the time clock should apply it the same way every time. Our 2-2-3 schedule guide walks through a rotation where this comes up every week.
• Confusing Zulu with local time. 1800Z is 1200 Central on standard time. If a document carries a Z, convert before putting it on a schedule.

If you build schedules for a team, the Workzenly scheduler keeps the shift times and the clock-in times in the same system, so there is nothing to convert between them.

Frequently asked questions