How Do You Read and Convert Military Time?

Military time counts the hours of the day from 00 to 23, written with four digits and no colon. To read it, look at the first two digits: up to 11 it is morning (AM), 12 is noon, and from 13 to 23 you subtract 12 for the afternoon or evening time. 1430 is 2:30 PM and 0915 is 9:15 AM.

How to convert military time to standard time

1. Split the four digits into hours and minutes: 1745 is 17 hours and 45 minutes.
2. If the hours are 13 or more, subtract 12 and use PM: 17 − 12 = 5, so 5:45 PM.
3. If the hours are 12, it is PM; if they are 00, it is 12 AM (midnight).
4. Hours from 01 to 11 stay the same and are AM.

How to convert standard time to military time

For PM times, add 12 to the hour (except 12 PM, which stays 12): 7:20 PM becomes 1920. For AM times, keep the hour and add a leading zero: 6:05 AM becomes 0605. 12 AM (midnight) becomes 0000.

Military time chart

How to say military time

Say the hours and minutes as two numbers and add “hours”: 1430 is “fourteen thirty hours”. Whole hours use “hundred”: 0600 is “zero six hundred hours” and 2000 is “twenty hundred hours”. Leading zeros are spoken as “zero” or, informally, “oh”.

Midnight and the 24-hour clock

The day starts at 0000 and its last minute is 2359. Some schedules write 2400 for the end of a day, which is the same moment as 0000 the next day. Outside the armed forces, most countries write the same 24-hour times with a colon, as in 14:30.

To convert any time instantly, use the Military Time Converter. For shift lengths, the Time Difference Calculator handles times that cross midnight, and the Time to Decimal Calculator turns hours and minutes into decimal hours for payroll.