Military Time Converter

About the Military Time Converter

Military time is the 24-hour clock written with four digits and no colon: the day starts at 0000 (midnight), noon is 1200 and the last minute of the day is 2359. To convert a p.m. time, add 12 to the hour (2:30 PM → 1430); in the 12 a.m. hour write the hour as 00 (12:30 AM → 0030). Going back, subtract 12 from hours 13 to 23 and add PM.

Type a time the way you write or say it — 2:30 pm, 1430, 14:30, 14h30, “fourteen thirty hours” — to get the military, 24-hour and 12-hour forms and how to say it. Add a time-zone letter (1430Z, 0600R) to convert it to Zulu (UTC), to another military zone or to your local time, and use the 24-hour chart for every hour of the day.

Common uses

• Reading shift rosters, hospital charts, train and flight timetables written in 24-hour time.
• Writing times in reports, logs and orders the military or emergency-services way.
• Turning a Zulu (UTC) time from a weather report, a flight plan or a message into your local time.
• Learning how to say times such as 0800 or 1430 aloud.

How to convert

• 12-hour to military: from 1:00 PM to 11:59 PM add 12 to the hour (7:15 PM → 1915). In the 12 a.m. hour write the hour as 00 (12:40 AM → 0040). Other a.m. times only need a leading zero (9:05 AM → 0905). Noon is 1200.
• Military to 12-hour: hours 13 to 23 minus 12 are p.m. (1730 → 5:30 PM); 1200 to 1259 are p.m. as they are; 0000 to 0059 are 12 a.m. (0015 → 12:15 AM); 0100 to 1159 are a.m. without the leading zero (0730 → 7:30 AM).
• Seconds: 14:30:45 is written 143045 when seconds are needed.

Written this way, military time matches the basic format of ISO 8601 (hhmm); 14:30 with a colon is ISO 8601’s extended format.

Midnight: 0000 or 2400?

Midnight belongs to two days. 0000 is the start of a day and 2400 the end of the day before — the same instant. ISO 8601 writes the start of a day as 00:00:00 and, since its first amendment, again allows 24:00:00 for the end of a day. 2400 is used only for midnight: one minute later is 0001 of the next day, never 2401. To leave no doubt about which day a deadline belongs to, set it at 2359 or 0001 instead.

How military time is said

The hours and the minutes are read as two pairs of digits, with “hundred” for a whole hour: 1430 is “fourteen thirty”, 0800 “zero eight hundred”, 2000 “twenty hundred”, 0005 “zero zero zero five” and 1005 “ten zero five”. “Hours” is often added after the time (“fourteen thirty hours”). Many people say “oh” instead of “zero” (“oh eight hundred”); both mean the same.

Military time zones: Z for Zulu

In military and aviation messages a letter after the time names its time zone. Z (Zulu) is UTC; A to M (skipping J) are 1 to 12 hours ahead of UTC and N to Y 1 to 12 hours behind; J (Juliett) means the observer’s local time. So 0600R (Romeo, UTC−5) is 1100Z, and 1430Z is 2030 in zone F (Foxtrot, UTC+6). The letters and their names follow ACP 121 (Communication Instructions — General), used by NATO and allied forces. L is Lima (UTC+11), not “local”: write local time with J.

The letters cover whole-hour offsets only. India (UTC+5:30), Nepal (UTC+5:45), Newfoundland (UTC−3:30) and other places with a half- or quarter-hour offset have no letter: give their times in Zulu, or as local time with J. Where clocks change for summer time, a place’s offset — and so its letter — changes for part of the year. For named places and summer time, use the time zone converter.

Limitations

• Each letter is a fixed offset from UTC. A place keeps its letter only while its offset stays the same; where clocks change for summer time, the letter changes too.
• J (local time) uses your device’s current UTC offset, so set the device’s clock and time zone correctly.
• Spoken times are read when the hours and minutes are said as numbers (“fourteen thirty”, “zero eight hundred”, “two thirty pm”); phrases such as “half past two” are not.
• Date-time groups such as 061430Z also carry the day of the month; this converter works with the time of day only.

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