Military time converter

How to convert military time

Military time counts the hours of the day from 00 to 23, so it never needs AM or PM. It is written as four digits with no colon: the first two are the hour and the last two are the minutes.

hours 13 to 23: standard hour = military hour − 12, PM

• 0000 to 0059 is the midnight hour: 0030 is 12:30 AM.
• 0100 to 1159 is the same as AM time: 0945 is 9:45 AM.
• 1200 to 1259 is the noon hour: 1215 is 12:15 PM.
• 1300 to 2359: subtract 12 and add PM. 1730 is 5:30 PM.

To go the other way, add 12 to any PM hour from 1 to 11, write 12 AM as 00, and pad morning hours with a leading zero: 7:05 AM is 0705 and 7:05 PM is 1905.

Worked example

Convert 2145 to standard time, then convert 6:20 AM to military time.

1. 2145: the hour is 21, which is more than 12, so subtract 12: 21 − 12 = 9. The minutes stay 45. The answer is 9:45 PM.
2. 6:20 AM: morning hours keep their number. Add a leading zero to the hour and drop the colon: 0620.

You say 2145 as “twenty-one forty-five hours” and 0620 as “zero six twenty hours.” The calculator gives the same answers.

Midnight, noon and 2400

Midnight at the start of a day is 0000, said “zero hundred hours.” Some schedules write midnight at the end of a day as 2400, so a shift from 1600 to 2400 ends at midnight. The next minute after 2359 is 0000 of the following day.

Noon is 1200. The hour from 12:00 PM to 12:59 PM is 1200 to 1259, and nothing is added or subtracted.