Softonic

Military Time Converter

Step 1 / 4 Military time converter

Which way do you want to convert?

Military time is the 24-hour clock used in US military settings; in many countries it is simply the normal written time format. Use this converter to turn 2:30 PM into 14:30, convert 14:30 back to 2:30 PM, and check the tricky noon and midnight cases without guessing.

How to convert 12-hour and 24-hour time

  1. 1

    Choose the direction

    Convert AM/PM time to 24-hour time, or convert 24-hour time back to AM/PM.

  2. 2

    Enter the time

    Use formats such as `2:30 PM`, `02:30 PM`, `14:30` or `1430`.

  3. 3

    Read the conversion

    The result uses a clear digital format with the correct leading zero where it matters.

  4. 4

    Check noon and midnight

    `12:00 AM` is `00:00`, while `12:00 PM` is `12:00`. These are the two cases that most often cause errors.

Conversion rules

12-hour to 24-hour:

  • 12:XX AM becomes 00:XX because midnight starts the day.
  • 1:XX AM through 11:XX AM becomes 01:XX through 11:XX.
  • 12:XX PM stays 12:XX because noon is already hour 12.
  • 1:XX PM through 11:XX PM becomes 13:XX through 23:XX by adding 12 to the hour.

24-hour to 12-hour:

  • 00:XX becomes 12:XX AM.
  • 01:XX through 11:XX becomes 1:XX AM through 11:XX AM.
  • 12:XX becomes 12:XX PM.
  • 13:XX through 23:XX becomes 1:XX PM through 11:XX PM by subtracting 12.

Quick reference table

12-hour input 24-hour result Common spoken form
12:00 AM 00:00 midnight, or zero hundred in military style
6:00 AM 06:00 six in the morning, or zero six hundred
9:30 AM 09:30 nine thirty in the morning
12:00 PM 12:00 noon, or twelve hundred
1:00 PM 13:00 one in the afternoon, or thirteen hundred
3:45 PM 15:45 three forty-five in the afternoon, or fifteen forty-five
8:00 PM 20:00 eight in the evening, or twenty hundred
11:59 PM 23:59 one minute before midnight, or twenty-three fifty-nine

Where 24-hour time is safer

  • Aviation and operations. Flight plans, dispatch notes and radio traffic avoid AM/PM ambiguity, often with UTC or Zulu time.
  • Healthcare and emergency work. Medication times, handover notes and incident logs need a single unambiguous reading.
  • Transport schedules. Trains, buses and airport boards in many countries use 24-hour times such as 06:15 and 22:40.
  • Software and logs. ISO-style timestamps, server logs and API headers are easier to sort and compare when the hour is written from 00 to 23.

Common mistakes

  • Using 24:00 as an everyday time. For this converter, midnight is 00:00. Some timetables or standards use 24:00 to mean the end of a day, but many digital systems expect the next day to start at 00:00.
  • Mixing up 12:00 AM and 12:00 PM. 12:00 AM is midnight. 12:00 PM is noon.
  • Dropping the leading zero. 06:05 is clearer than 6:05 in schedules, logs and military-style notation.
  • Forgetting the time zone. 14:30 says the hour, not the location. Add local time, UTC or a time-zone abbreviation when the audience needs it.

Digital formats to recognize

  • ISO 8601 commonly writes date and time together in 24-hour form, for example 2026-04-18T14:30:00.
  • HTTP Date headers use a fixed UTC/GMT time format such as Sat, 18 Apr 2026 14:30:00 GMT.
  • UNIX timestamps count seconds from 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, so the displayed clock format is chosen later by the app.

Keep machine-readable time in 24-hour form, then show AM/PM only where the audience expects it.

Frequently Asked Questions

For conversion purposes, yes. Military time is the US name for writing the day from 0000 to 2359, while most countries call the same idea the 24-hour clock.

Digital clocks normally count hours from 00 to 23. Use 00:00 for the start of a day. Treat 24:00 only as a special end-of-day notation when a timetable or standard explicitly asks for it.

12:01 AM is one minute after midnight, so it converts to 00:01. 12:01 PM is one minute after noon, so it stays 12:01.

For 24-hour input, yes: 1430 is read as 14:30. For 12-hour input, include AM or PM, such as 2:30 PM, so the converter knows which half of the day you mean.

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