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Military Time
The current 24-hour clock, a full reference chart, and an instant converter.000012:00 AMzero hundred
Military time right now is 0000 (12:00 AM) in your time zone.
Reference
Military time chart
0000 and 2400 mark the same instant, midnight — 0000 opens a day, 2400 closes the one before it. Everywhere else on this page uses 0000.
Tool
Military time converter
Guide
How to read military time
Military time is always four digits, with no colon: the first two are the hour (00-23) and the last two are the minutes (00-59). 1742 means 17 hours and 42 minutes past midnight — 5:42 in the afternoon. Reading it out loud follows the same split: say the hour, then the minutes, adding "hundred" whenever the minutes are zero, so 0900 is "zero nine hundred" and 1430 is "fourteen thirty".
To turn a military time into the familiar 12-hour clock, anything from 0000 to 1159 keeps its minutes and gets an AM (with 0000 read as 12:00 AM); anything from 1300 to 2359 loses 1200 from the hour and gets a PM. 1200 on its own stays 12:00 PM, noon. The converter above does this instantly for any time you type, in either direction.
Compare
Military time vs 24-hour time
Military time and 24-hour time describe the same clock — hours numbered 00 through 23, with no AM or PM — but they're written and spoken differently. 24-hour time is usually shown with a colon and read as two numbers, like 17:42 read "seventeen forty-two" or "five forty-two in the afternoon". Military time drops the colon and adds a fixed, radio-friendly way of speaking it — 1742 read as "seventeen forty-two", with every hour from 1 to 9 given a leading "zero" (0600 is "zero six hundred", never "six hundred") so it can never be misheard. In practice the two are interchangeable for telling the time; military time is the stricter, spoken-aloud version of the same 24-hour clock.
FAQ
Military time questions
What is military time?
Military time is the 24-hour clock written as four digits with no colon, like 1742 for 5:42 PM. The hours run from 0000 (midnight) to 2359 (one minute before midnight), so every moment of the day has one unambiguous number — no AM or PM needed.
How do you read military time out loud?
Each two-digit half is read as a number, with "hundred" added when the minutes are zero. 1700 is "seventeen hundred", 1742 is "seventeen forty-two", and 0105 is "zero one zero five". Midnight, 0000, is read as "zero hundred".
Is 2400 the same as 0000?
They mark the same instant — midnight — but 0000 opens a new day and 2400 closes the one that just ended. Schedules and timetables use 2400 to mean "end of day"; the next day then starts again at 0000.
How do I convert military time to regular time?
For 1300 and later, subtract 1200 and add PM: 1742 − 1200 = 5:42, so 1742 is 5:42 PM. For 0000-1159, keep the minutes and add AM, treating 0000 as 12:00 AM. The converter above does this instantly in both directions.
Why do pilots, hospitals and the military use this format?
A four-digit 24-hour time removes the AM/PM ambiguity that causes real scheduling errors — 0600 and 1800 can never be confused the way 6:00 could be. That precision matters most where a mix-up is costly: aviation, healthcare, logistics and the armed forces.
Does military time change with daylight saving?
No — military time is just a way of writing a clock reading, not a time zone. It shifts the same way the local clock does when daylight saving starts or ends; the four digits simply describe whatever the local 24-hour clock reads at that moment.