What Is Military Time? The 24-Hour Clock Explained

Military time is a 24-hour clock that numbers the hours of the day from 00 to 23 and writes every time as 4 digits, from 0000 (midnight) to 2359 (11:59 PM). It has no AM or PM, so 7:00 AM is 0700 and 7:00 PM is 1900.

How Military Time Works

Military time always uses 4 digits. The first two digits are the hour (00–23) and the last two are the minutes (00–59). There is no colon: 9:30 AM is 0930, 2:30 PM is 1430 and 5:34 PM is 1734.

The day starts at 0000, reaches noon at 1200 and ends at 2359. Morning hours keep a leading zero (0800), and afternoon hours keep counting past 12 (1300 is 1 PM).

Military Time Chart

Military	Standard	Military	Standard
0000	12:00 AM (midnight)	1200	12:00 PM (noon)
0100	1:00 AM	1300	1:00 PM
0300	3:00 AM	1500	3:00 PM
0600	6:00 AM	1800	6:00 PM
0900	9:00 AM	2100	9:00 PM
1100	11:00 AM	2300	11:00 PM

The full military time chart lists every hour, quarter hour and minute.

How to Read Military Time

To read military time, look at the first two digits. 3 rules cover every time:

1. 00 to 11 are AM. Drop the leading zero (0930 → 9:30 AM); 00 becomes 12 (0045 → 12:45 AM).
2. 12 is the noon hour and takes PM (1215 → 12:15 PM).
3. 13 to 23 are PM. Subtract 12 (1734 → 5:34 PM).

How to Say Military Time

Say the hour, the minutes and then “hours.” Times on the hour use “hundred,” never “thousand”:

• 0800 → “zero eight hundred hours” (casually “oh eight hundred”)
• 1430 → “fourteen thirty hours”
• 2000 → “twenty hundred hours”
• 0905 → “zero nine zero five hours”

Military Time vs. Standard Time vs. the 24-Hour Clock

Military time and the 24-hour clock show the same hours; standard time repeats 1–12 twice with AM and PM.

	Military time	24-hour clock	Standard time
6:30 PM	1830	18:30	6:30 PM
Colon	No	Yes	Yes
AM / PM	No	No	Yes

Army time, military time and the 24-hour clock are names for the same system.

A Short History of Military Time

The 24-hour day goes back to ancient Egypt, which split day and night into 12 hours each. The U.S. Navy adopted the 24-hour clock in 1920 and the U.S. Army followed in 1942, during World War II, to stop AM/PM mix-ups in orders and radio traffic.

Who Uses Military Time?

8 groups use military time every day:

• Armed forces: orders, watch rotations and field exercises.
• Aviation: flight plans in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
• Hospitals: medication doses, vital signs and time of death.
• Police and fire departments: dispatch logs and incident reports.
• Emergency medical services (EMS): call and transport times.
• Logistics: warehouse shifts, trucking and shipping logs.
• Transit: rail and bus timetables in most countries.
• Computers: system logs and ISO 8601 timestamps.

Military Time Zones and the Date-Time Group

Military time is a format, not a time zone. To share one clock, the military writes times in Zulu time (Z), which is UTC: 1430Z means 1430 UTC. Each time zone has a letter, such as R (Romeo) for Eastern Standard Time; the military time zone converter lists all 25.

Messages carry a date-time group (DTG) in the form DDHHMMZ MON YY. 091530Z OCT 26 means the 9th day, 1530 Zulu, October 2026.

Military Time Practice Questions

1. What is 0645 in standard time? — 6:45 AM
2. What is 9:20 PM in military time? — 2120
3. What is 0015 in standard time? — 12:15 AM
4. What is 12:40 PM in military time? — 1240
5. How do you say 1100? — “Eleven hundred hours”

Quick Answers

• Is military time AM or PM? Neither. 0000–1159 is morning; 1200–2359 is afternoon and evening.
• Does 2400 exist? Yes, as midnight at the end of a day. It is the same moment as 0000 of the next day.
• Do times like 2500 exist? No. Hours stop at 23.

Convert any time with the military time converter, or read the conversion guide.