How to Read Military Time: A Plain-English Guide With a 24-Hour Chart

The basic idea

Military time is the 24-hour clock. It is used by the armed forces, hospitals, airlines, emergency services and many shift-based workplaces because it removes the AM and PM guesswork. This guide shows how to read it, write it, say it, and use it to calculate shift hours.

Military time numbers the hours from 00 to 23 and writes the time as four digits with no colon. The first two digits are the hour and the last two are the minutes. So 0830 is 8:30 in the morning and 2015 is 8:15 in the evening. There is no AM or PM because the hour number already says which half of the day you are in.

Converting military time to standard time

1. 0000 to 0059 is just after midnight. 0030 is 12:30 AM.
2. 0100 to 1159 is the morning. Drop the leading zero and add AM. 0745 is 7:45 AM.
3. 1200 to 1259 is the noon hour. Keep the hour and add PM. 1215 is 12:15 PM.
4. 1300 to 2359 is the afternoon and evening. Subtract 12 from the hour and add PM. 1745 is 5:45 PM.

The minutes never change. To go the other way, add 12 to any PM hour except 12 PM, and treat 12 AM as 00. So 6:30 PM is 1830 and 12:05 AM is 0005.

Quick reference

How to say military time

On the hour, say the hour and “hundred”: 1800 is “eighteen hundred hours” and 0600 is “zero six hundred hours”. With minutes, say the hour and then the minutes: 1830 is “eighteen thirty hours” and 2359 is “twenty-three fifty-nine hours”. For single-digit minutes after a two-digit hour, speakers say “oh”, as in “thirteen oh five hours” for 1305. Early-morning times are read digit by digit, so 0605 is “zero six zero five hours”. Midnight, 0000, is “zero hundred hours”.

Midnight: 0000 or 2400?

Most sources write 0000 for the start of a day. Some use 2400 for the end of the same day, which is the same instant as 0000 on the next date. Style guides note that 0001 and 2359 avoid the ambiguity entirely. If you are writing a schedule that crosses midnight, say which date each time belongs to.

Calculating hours worked across midnight

You cannot simply subtract two military times, because the minutes stop at 59, not 99. Convert both times to minutes after midnight. If the end time is earlier than the start time, the shift crosses midnight, so add 1,440 minutes (24 hours) to the end. Subtract the start and then any unpaid break.

For example, a shift runs from 2200 to 0600 with a 30-minute unpaid break. That is 8 hours, minus 30 minutes, which equals 7 hours 30 minutes, or 7.5 hours in decimal form. Payroll systems usually want decimals, so divide the minutes by 60: 15 minutes is 0.25, 30 is 0.50, 45 is 0.75 and 10 is 0.17 (rounded).

Overtime law counts hours per workweek, not per shift. Add the paid hours of every shift in the workweek before deciding what is over 40, then use the overtime calculator to work out pay. Your employer’s rounding and break policies decide the official figure.

Adding and subtracting military time

Convert to minutes, add or subtract, and convert back. Adding 3 hours 45 minutes to 2230: 2230 is 1,350 minutes, plus 225 is 1,575 minutes. That passes 1,440, so subtract 1,440 to get 135 minutes, which is 0215 on the next day.

Zulu time and time zones

A trailing Z, as in 1830Z, stands for Zulu time, which is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Zulu time does not change for daylight saving. To convert US local time to Zulu, add the zone’s offset: Eastern Standard Time is UTC−5, so 1400 EST is 1900Z, and Eastern Daylight Time is UTC−4, so 1400 EDT is 1800Z.

Because the offset depends on the date, the converter uses the time-zone rules built into your browser (the IANA database) instead of fixed numbers, and warns you if a time falls inside a daylight-saving gap or overlap.

Common mistakes

• Writing 12:30 AM as 1230. It is 0030.
• Reading 1300 as “1 o’clock” with no PM. It is 1:00 PM.
• Subtracting times as ordinary numbers (1030 − 0945 is 45 minutes, not 85).
• Forgetting the date when a shift or an event crosses midnight.
• Forgetting that Z time does not shift with daylight saving.

Common questions

Sources

Reviewed on 18 Oct 2026 against the published sources below. Laws and prices change, so check the current position before you rely on a figure.

• Military.com: Military time, the 24-hour clock
• Neha Karve: Writing times of day in 24-hour format, The Editor’s Manual (updated 12 December 2021)
• IANA Time Zone Database

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