Convert between 24-hour (military) time and 12-hour AM/PM time, for schedules, time cards and shift handovers.
24-hour to 12-hour: hours 1 to 11 stay the same with AM; 12 is 12 PM; 13 to 23 minus 12 with PM; 00 is 12 AM.
12-hour to 24-hour: AM hours stay the same, except 12 AM becomes 00; PM hours add 12, except 12 PM stays 12.
A night security guard clocks in at 22:45 and out at 07:15. In 12-hour time that is 10:45 PM to 7:15 AM, a shift of 8.5 hours.
Many time clocks, hospitals, security teams and shift schedules use 24-hour time because it avoids AM/PM mix-ups on night shifts.
Use the converter when reading time clock exports or writing schedules for teams that use the other format.
| 24-hour | 12-hour |
|---|---|
| 00:00 | 12:00 AM |
| 06:00 | 6:00 AM |
| 12:00 | 12:00 PM |
| 13:00 | 1:00 PM |
| 18:00 | 6:00 PM |
| 21:00 | 9:00 PM |
| 23:59 | 11:59 PM |
A nursing home’s paper log shows a resident check at 12:05 AM and a shift change at 7:20 PM. Entering 12, 05 and AM gives 00:05 (said 0005 hours), because the hour after midnight is hour zero, not hour 12. Entering 7, 20 and PM gives 19:20, since afternoon and evening hours add 12. Logging them as 00:05 and 19:20 removes the AM and PM mix-ups from the record.
The converter handles one clock time at a time and shows both formats; it does not work out shift length. Hours outside 0 to 23 in 24-hour mode, or 1 to 12 in 12-hour mode, are rejected, and decimals are cut to whole hours and minutes. An entry of 24 for midnight is also rejected, so enter 0 and treat it as the start of the next day.
The US military uses the 24-hour clock; elsewhere it is simply the 24-hour clock.
Usually 00:00 for the start of a day; 24:00 is sometimes used for its end.
Fourteen hundred hours.
Add 24 hours to the end time if it is earlier than the start.
Read it as pairs of digits: ‘zero eight zero five’ or ‘oh eight oh five’, and 19:00 is ‘nineteen hundred’. The converter shows the spoken form as, for example, 0805 hours.
12:00 is noon and 00:00 is midnight. Writing 12:00 AM or 12:00 PM on a schedule is a frequent source of mix-ups, which is one reason many timesheets use 24-hour time.
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