Military Time Converter
Convert between military time (24-hour) and standard 12-hour AM/PM time. Full conversion chart included.
About the Military Time Converter
Military time is a timekeeping system that uses a 24-hour clock running from 0000 (midnight) to 2359 (11:59 PM), removing the ambiguity of the 12-hour AM/PM system. It is called 'military time' in the United States because it is the standard format used by the US Armed Forces, but it is actually the global standard: the 24-hour clock is used in most countries, aviation, medicine, computing, and international communications. In Europe and much of the world, the 24-hour format is simply called 'normal time'.
Reading military time is straightforward once you understand the pattern. The first two digits represent the hour (00–23) and the last two digits represent the minutes (00–59). There is no colon in strict military notation — 1300 is read as 'thirteen hundred hours'. For hours from 0000 to 1159, military time is identical to standard time except for the leading zero on single-digit hours (0800 = 8:00 AM). For 1200 onward, subtract 12 to get the PM hour: 1300 − 12 = 1:00 PM, 1845 − 12 = 6:45 PM, 2359 − 12 = 11:59 PM.
Converting back from standard to military: AM times keep the same two-digit hour with a leading zero (3:30 AM = 0330). Noon is 1200. PM times add 12 to the hour (7:45 PM = 1945, 11:00 PM = 2300). Midnight is 0000 — not 2400. Our converter handles all of these cases, including the edge cases of noon (12:00 PM = 1200) and midnight (12:00 AM = 0000) that trip up many people.
Pros & Cons
- +Converts both directions: 12-hour to 24-hour and 24-hour to 12-hour
- +Full 24-entry reference chart showing every hour in both formats
- +Handles the tricky noon and midnight edge cases correctly
- +Flexible input — accepts with or without colons
- +Free with no sign-up required
- −Converts time-of-day only — does not add or subtract time durations
- −Does not include seconds in military notation (seconds are rarely used in military time)
- −Does not handle time zones or convert between time zones
- −Does not display the current time in military format (use your device clock)
- −NATO phonetic time pronunciation (e.g. 'zero eight hundred') not included
Military Time Chart and Common Conversions
The most commonly searched military times are the ones that require the +12/−12 conversion: 1300 = 1:00 PM, 1400 = 2:00 PM, 1500 = 3:00 PM, 1600 = 4:00 PM, 1700 = 5:00 PM (end of business day), 1800 = 6:00 PM, 1900 = 7:00 PM, 2000 = 8:00 PM, 2100 = 9:00 PM, 2200 = 10:00 PM, 2300 = 11:00 PM. The full chart is included in our calculator's chart tab.
Medical settings use 24-hour time to eliminate medication errors caused by AM/PM confusion. A medication prescribed for 8:00 is ambiguous — 8:00 AM or 8:00 PM? In a 24-hour notation, 0800 and 2000 are unambiguous. Aviation similarly uses 24-hour time (and UTC, the global standard time zone) for all scheduled departures and arrivals to prevent scheduling errors across time zones. Flight 201 departs at 2215 UTC — there is no AM/PM ambiguity.
Programming and databases almost universally use 24-hour time internally (often stored as Unix timestamps or ISO 8601 datetime strings like 2025-08-10T14:30:00Z). When building an application, converting user-entered 12-hour times to 24-hour for storage and back for display is a very common task. Knowing the conversion rules — and their edge cases — helps developers implement it correctly without off-by-one errors at noon and midnight.