🕐 Military Time Converter: 12-Hour to 24-Hour Clock

What is the Military Time Converter?

Military time, also called the 24-hour clock or army time, counts the hours of a single day from 00 through 23 instead of restarting at 12 twice. There is no AM or PM because the number itself tells you whether it is morning or evening: anything below 1200 is in the morning, 1200 is noon, and anything above that is afternoon or night. The minutes never change between systems, so only the hour digits ever need converting. Writing the time as four digits, like 0815 or 2105, removes the everyday confusion over whether a meeting is at 8 in the morning or 8 at night.

Going from standard time to military time follows one simple rule. For any AM hour the number stays almost the same, except that 12 AM (midnight) becomes 0000, so 12:45 AM is 0045 and 7:30 AM is 0730. For PM hours you add 12 to the hour, so 1 PM becomes 1300 and 9 PM becomes 2100, with the single exception that 12 PM (noon) stays as 1200 rather than becoming 2400. The reverse direction, military time back to standard, is just as tidy: hours of 00 read as 12 AM, hours of 01 to 11 keep their number and are AM, 12 is 12 PM, and 13 to 23 have 12 subtracted and are PM. That is the whole logic this military time converter applies for you in both directions.

Reading military time aloud has its own convention that trips up newcomers. Whole hours are spoken as the number followed by hundred, so 1500 is fifteen hundred and 0600 is zero six hundred. When there are minutes, you say the hour and then the minutes as a separate number, so 1422 is fourteen twenty-two. Midnight is often spoken as zero hundred and noon as twelve hundred. The converter prints the spoken form for every result and across the whole chart, which is handy if you are learning to speak the 24-hour clock for work, aviation, healthcare, or travel.

The 24-hour clock is the international standard for transport timetables, the military, hospitals, computing, and most of the world outside North America. Knowing how to convert military time quickly means you can read a flight departure of 1750, a medication schedule logged at 2300, or a server log timestamp without second-guessing the part of day. Because this tool runs entirely in your browser with no rounding and no sign-up, you can trust every value it shows and use it as often as you like.

When to use it

• Reading a flight, train, or bus timetable that lists departures like 1750 or 0540.
• Logging or interpreting hospital medication and shift times written in 24-hour format.
• Translating an army time or duty roster entry such as 1830 into 6:30 PM.
• Setting calendar events correctly when a partner abroad sends times in the 24-hour clock.
• Learning to say military time aloud, for example knowing that 1300 is thirteen hundred.
• Checking computer or CCTV log timestamps that always use the 24-hour clock.

How to use the Military Time Converter

1. Pick a direction: 12-hour to military, or military to 12-hour, using the buttons at the top.
2. For 12-hour to military, enter the hour from 1 to 12, the minute, and choose AM or PM.
3. For military to 12-hour, type the four-digit code such as 1430 (a colon is optional).
4. Read the large result plus the 12-hour, 24-hour, and spoken versions in the result box.
5. Use Copy to grab the main result, or scan the reference chart for any whole hour.

Formula & method

Worked examples

Military time conversion chart, every hour from midnight to night

The two tricky cases people get wrong

Common mistakes to avoid

• Turning 12 PM into 2400 instead of 1200. Noon is the one PM time you do not add 12 to. Twelve PM is simply 1200. Adding 12 would give 2400, which is not a valid time on the 24-hour clock; the day ends at 2359 and restarts at 0000.
• Writing midnight as 2400 rather than 0000. Midnight at the start of a day is 0000. Some timetables write 2400 to mean the very end of a day, but for conversion purposes 12:00 AM is 0000 and the next minute is 0001.
• Adding 12 to morning (AM) hours. The plus 12 rule only applies to PM times. Morning hours from 1 AM to 11 AM keep their number, just padded to two digits, so 9:15 AM is 0915, not 2115.
• Forgetting that minutes never change. Only the hour digits differ between the 12-hour and 24-hour systems. The minutes stay identical, so 6:47 PM converts cleanly to 1847 with the 47 untouched.

Glossary

Military time

A way of telling time using a 24-hour clock, from 0000 to 2359, with no AM or PM. Also called army time.

24-hour clock

A timekeeping system where the day runs from 00 to 23 hours, the international standard for transport, medicine, and computing.

12-hour clock

The everyday clock that runs 1 to 12 twice a day and uses AM and PM to mark morning and afternoon.

AM

From the Latin ante meridiem, meaning before noon. Covers midnight (12 AM) up to just before noon.

PM

From the Latin post meridiem, meaning after noon. Covers noon (12 PM) up to just before midnight.

Zero hundred

The spoken form of 0000, meaning midnight at the start of a day on the 24-hour clock.

Frequently asked questions