Military Time Converter (24-Hour Clock)
Convert between 24-hour military time and 12-hour am/pm time, either way.
Good to know. Noon is 12 pm and midnight is 12 am, which is exactly why timetables use 00:00 and 12:00 instead.
How it works
In plain words
From 13:00 to 23:59, subtract 12 hours and add pm. From 00:00 to 00:59, write 12 and add am. From 01:00 to 11:59 add am, and 12:00 to 12:59 is pm. Going the other way, add 12 to pm hours except 12 pm, and write 12 am as 00.
The formula
12-hour = hour − 12, pm (for 13–23) 00:xx = 12:xx am · 12:xx = 12:xx pm 24-hour = hour + 12 (for 1–11 pm)
Worked example
17:30 is after noon, so take away 12: 17 − 12 = 5, which gives 5:30 pm. In military time it is 1730 hours, said “seventeen thirty”.
Sources
No outside data or rates: this is plain arithmetic.
6 automated tests check its answers on every change.
About the military time converter (24-hour clock)
The 24-hour clock numbers the hours of the day from 00 to 23, so there is no need for am and pm. It is the standard way to write time in most of the world, and in the US and Canada it is used by the military, hospitals, airlines, police and emergency services, which is why it is often called military time there.
To convert from the 24-hour clock, subtract 12 from any hour from 13 to 23 and add pm: 15:00 is 3 pm and 21:45 is 9:45 pm. Hours from 01 to 11 are am. The two special cases are 00:00, which is 12 am (midnight), and 12:00, which is 12 pm (noon). To go the other way, add 12 to pm hours from 1 to 11.
Military time is written without a colon, always with four digits, and spoken as “zero six hundred” for 0600 or “eighteen thirty” for 1830. Some timetables write the end of a day as 24:00, the same moment as 00:00 the next day.
The table shows every hour on both clocks. Type a time in either form above to convert it.
Questions people ask
What time is 1700 in military time?
5:00 pm. Subtract 12 from any hour from 13 to 23 to get the pm time.
Is midnight 0000 or 2400?
Usually 0000, the start of the new day. 2400 is sometimes used for the end of a day, as in a shift that ends at 2400.
Is 12 pm noon or midnight?
Noon. 12 am is midnight. The 24-hour clock avoids the confusion: 12:00 is noon and 00:00 is midnight.
How do you say military time?
Say the four digits as two pairs: 1830 is “eighteen thirty”, 0600 is “zero six hundred”, and 2100 is “twenty-one hundred”.