Military Time Converter

Common questions

How do you read military time?

Four digits, no colon. The first two are the hour on a 24-hour clock and the last two are the minutes, so 1435 is 14 hours and 35 minutes. From 0100 to 1259 the digits match the morning time you already know, and from 1300 onwards you subtract 12 from the hour to get the afternoon time: 1435 becomes 2:35 PM. The hour after midnight is the exception, because the 12-hour clock has no zero hour: 0030 is 12:30 AM. The day starts at 0000 and its last minute is 2359.

What is the difference between 0000 and 2400?

They are the same instant, named from opposite ends. 0000 is the first minute of a day and 2400 is the last minute of the day before it, so a watch ending at 2400 Monday and one starting at 0000 Tuesday change over together. Which one is correct depends on the unit or the roster, so the converter takes both as input and the Midnight control decides which one it prints. Switching it moves midnight and nothing else.

How do you say military time out loud?

Digit by digit, not as a number. 1435 is said "fourteen thirty-five" and 2359 is "twenty-three fifty-nine". A whole hour becomes a hundred: 0100 is "zero one hundred" and 1200 is "twelve hundred". Hours and minutes below ten keep their leading zero as a spoken word, so 0905 is "zero nine zero five" and 0030 is "zero zero thirty". Midnight is the one that carries the word hours: "zero hundred hours", or "twenty-four hundred hours" on the other convention. The spoken form is shown for every result and in every row of the chart.

Is 12:00 PM 1200 or 0000?

12:00 PM is 1200, the middle of the day. 12:00 AM is 0000, midnight. The 12-hour clock is what makes this confusing: it counts 12 before 1 rather than after it, so the hour labelled 12 belongs to the half that is ending, not the one that is starting. Type either into the box and the converter handles it, and the chart shows both rows.

Can it convert times with seconds?

Yes. 14:35:09, 143509 and 2:35:09 PM are all read correctly. When a time carries seconds the military form runs to six digits (143509), the 24-hour form shows 14:35:09, and the spoken form adds "and nine seconds" on the end. Times without seconds stay at four digits, which is how they are normally written.

What can I type into the box?

1435, 14:35, 14.35, 935, 9, 2:35 PM, 2:35pm, 12:00 AM, 2400, 1435 hours, and the words noon, midday and midnight. The form is detected as you type, so the direction control never has to be set correctly first: it only chooses whether the 12-hour or the military form is shown large.