Military time is a four-digit, 24-hour clock that runs from 0000 at midnight to 2359 one minute before the next midnight, with no colon and no AM or PM. To read it, split the digits into hours and minutes, subtract 12 from any hour of 13 or more, and leave the minutes alone. In short, 1745 is 17 minus 12, which is 5, followed by 45 minutes: 5:45 PM. Hours 00 through 11 are the morning, 12 is noon, and 13 through 23 are the afternoon and evening.
This guide covers the three-step method, how to say the times out loud, how to read a duty roster or shift schedule written this way, and the small differences between military time, a 24-hour clock, and Zulu time. If you want to check a single time while you read, the Military Time Converter swaps any 12-hour time to 24-hour and back.
The Three Steps to Read Any Military Time
Every military time has the same shape: two digits for the hour, then two digits for the minutes. 0905 is 09 and 05. 2140 is 21 and 40. Once you see the split, the rest is one short rule for the hours.
- Split the digits. The first two digits are the hour, the last two are the minutes. If a time is written with only three digits, as in 905, add a leading zero in your head to get 0905.
- Read the hour. If the hour is 00, it is 12 AM. If it is 01 through 11, read it as the same number in the morning, so 07 is 7 AM. If it is 12, it is noon. If it is 13 through 23, subtract 12 and call it PM, so 15 becomes 3 PM.
- Keep the minutes. The minutes are already correct. 1530 is 3:30 PM, 0905 is 9:05 AM, and 0045 is 12:45 AM.
The subtraction is the only arithmetic in the whole system, and it only applies to eleven hours of the day. A shortcut for 1300 through 2100 is to subtract 2 and then drop the first digit: 17 minus 2 is 15, drop the 1, and you have 5. The shortcut fails at 22 and 23, so for those two hours remember 2200 is 10 PM and 2300 is 11 PM.
For example, a hospital chart notes a dose given at 1415. Split it: 14 hours, 15 minutes. The hour is above 12, so 14 minus 12 is 2, and the dose was given at 2:15 PM. A second note at 0245 reads as 2:45 AM, because 02 is a morning hour and nothing needs subtracting.
How to Say Military Time Out Loud
Reading the digits correctly is half the job. In a radio call, a handover, or a briefing, the time is spoken in a fixed pattern, and getting it right is the difference between sounding fluent and being asked to repeat yourself.
- Say the leading zero. 0600 is "zero six hundred", not "six hundred". In casual speech you will hear "oh six hundred", but "zero" is the form taught in the US military because it is harder to mishear.
- Use "hundred" only on the hour. 1400 is "fourteen hundred". 1430 is "fourteen thirty", with no "hundred" anywhere.
- Read minutes as a number. 0905 is "zero nine zero five". 1715 is "seventeen fifteen". 2359 is "twenty-three fifty-nine".
- "Hours" is optional. Some branches and many civilians add it at the end, as in "sixteen hundred hours". Others drop it. Both are understood, so follow the convention of the people you are speaking with.
- Midnight and noon have names. 0000 is "zero hundred" or "midnight", and 1200 is "twelve hundred" or "noon".
The one word never spoken is "o'clock". Military time has no o'clock, and nobody says "fourteen o'clock".
Practice: Twelve Times to Read
The Military Time Converter page lists every full hour from 0000 to 2300. The table below does something different: it mixes in minutes, the part that trips people up when they read a real schedule, and shows the spoken form next to the 12-hour reading.
| Military time | How to say it | 12-hour time | What to notice |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0005 | zero zero zero five | 12:05 AM | Hour 00 is 12 AM, just after midnight |
| 0630 | zero six thirty | 6:30 AM | Leading zero is spoken |
| 0905 | zero nine zero five | 9:05 AM | Minutes under 10 keep their zero |
| 1145 | eleven forty-five | 11:45 AM | Still AM, nothing to subtract |
| 1200 | twelve hundred | 12:00 PM | Noon, not midnight |
| 1215 | twelve fifteen | 12:15 PM | Hour 12 stays 12 and is PM |
| 1330 | thirteen thirty | 1:30 PM | 13 minus 12 is 1 |
| 1600 | sixteen hundred | 4:00 PM | "Hundred" because the minutes are 00 |
| 1745 | seventeen forty-five | 5:45 PM | 17 minus 12 is 5 |
| 2000 | twenty hundred | 8:00 PM | 20 minus 12 is 8 |
| 2140 | twenty-one forty | 9:40 PM | 21 minus 12 is 9 |
| 2359 | twenty-three fifty-nine | 11:59 PM | Last minute of the day |
Cover the right-hand columns and read the left one aloud. If you can get all twelve without pausing, you can read any military time you will meet.
Reading Shift Schedules and Duty Rosters
Rosters, nursing schedules, and dispatch logs use military time because a shift written "6 to 2" is ambiguous and a shift written "0600 to 1400" is not. Reading the times is step one. Working out how long a shift is comes next.
Same-day shifts. Subtract the start from the end, hours and minutes separately. A 0730 to 1600 shift is 16 minus 7, which is 9 hours, minus the 30 minutes of the start time, so 8 hours 30 minutes. If the minutes of the end time are smaller than the minutes of the start time, borrow an hour: 0745 to 1630 is 16:30 minus 7:45, or 8 hours 45 minutes.
Overnight shifts. When the end time is smaller than the start time, the shift crosses midnight. Add 24 to the end hour before subtracting. A 2200 to 0600 shift becomes 22 to 30, which is 8 hours. A 1900 to 0730 shift becomes 19 to 31:30, which is 12 hours 30 minutes.
Breaks. Unpaid breaks come off the total afterwards. An 8 hour 30 minute shift with a 30 minute lunch pays 8 hours.
For a week of these, the Hours Calculator adds up start and end times, handles the overnight case, and subtracts breaks, and the Time Clock Calculator does the same from punch-in and punch-out pairs. To add or subtract a block of time from a single clock reading, such as 1745 plus 2 hours 40 minutes, use the Time Calculator.
Military Time, 24-Hour Time, and Zulu Time
People use these three names as if they were the same thing. They share the same hour count, but each has its own written style, and the third one carries a time zone with it.
| Format | Example | Written style | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 24-hour clock | 14:30 | Colon between hours and minutes, leading zero on hours under 10 in most countries | Digital clocks, phones, European and most non-US timetables, ISO 8601 timestamps |
| Military time | 1430 | Four digits, no colon, always a leading zero | US military orders, hospital charts, police and EMS logs, pilot and dispatcher radio |
| Zulu time | 1430Z | Military time plus a zone letter | Aviation, weather reports, naval and joint operations, anything coordinated across zones |
The colon. A 24-hour clock writes 06:15. Military time writes 0615. They mean the same thing, and most people who read one can read the other after a day of practice.
The zone letter. Military time can end in a letter that names the time zone. Z is Zulu, which is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). J is Juliett, which means local time wherever the reader is. The other letters step around the globe one hour at a time, so R (Romeo) is UTC minus 5, which is US Eastern Standard Time. If a message says 1400Z and you are in New York in winter, that is 0900 local, and if you are in Berlin, it is 1500. The Time Zone Converter does the shift for you, and the World Clock shows the current military time in several cities side by side.
2400 versus 0000. This is the one place the systems split. A 24-hour clock has no 24:00. It shows 00:00 and starts a new date. Many military and shift schedules write 2400 for the end of a day and 0000, or 0001, for the start of the next, so that a roster can say "duty ends 2400 Monday" without implying Tuesday. Both labels name the same instant. When you type a time into a converter, a spreadsheet, or a web form, use 0000.
Where You Will Run Into Military Time
- Health care. Medication records, surgery schedules, and nursing handovers use it so that a 9 PM dose is never read as 9 AM. A chart note of 2100 means 9:00 PM.
- Emergency services. Police, fire, and ambulance logs record every call and arrival in four digits because reports are checked to the minute, often in court.
- Aviation. Flight plans, weather reports, and air traffic control all run on Zulu time so that a pilot crossing three zones and a controller on the ground read the same clock.
- Travel. Rail and air timetables in most of the world print 24-hour times, so a departure listed as 17:40 is 5:40 PM. Boarding passes outside the US almost always follow suit.
- Workplaces. Factories, warehouses, hospitals, and anywhere with a night shift tend to post rosters in military time, so the overnight-shift arithmetic above is worth learning.
Misreadings That Cause Real Problems
Most military time mistakes come from reading, not from arithmetic. These are the ones that show up again and again on rosters and charts.
- Reading 1200 as midnight. 1200 is noon. Midnight is 0000 or 2400. A worker who shows up at midnight for a 1200 start is twelve hours early.
- Reading 0030 as 12:30 PM. Hour 00 is the first hour after midnight, so 0030 is 12:30 AM. The daytime half-past-twelve is 1230.
- Dropping the leading zero in a message. 630 can be misread as 6:30 PM by someone used to 12-hour clocks. Write 0630 so the morning is unmistakable.
- Subtracting 12 from the minutes. Only the hour changes. 1545 is 3:45 PM, never 3:33 PM.
- Treating a Zulu time as local. 0600Z is 1:00 AM in New York during standard time and 2:00 AM during daylight time. Reading it as 6 AM local puts you five or six hours off.
- Assuming 2400 and 0000 are different times. They are the same instant. The only difference is which date the writer is attaching it to.
Reading the digits in the three-step order above, hours first and minutes last, prevents the first four. Checking for a zone letter at the end prevents the fifth. For more on reading clocks, calculating durations, and working across time zones, browse the Time & Date calculators.