1500 Military Time (one-five-zero-zero hours)

Military Time 1500 is:
03:00 PM using 12-hour clock notation,
15:00 using 24-hour clock notation.

1500 is pronounced as: “fifteen hundred hours” or “fifteen hundred hours” or “one-five-zero-zero hours” or “one-five-oh-oh hours”

Military time notation is based on 24-hour clock. A time of day is written in the form hhmm, where hh (0-23) stands for full hours that have passed since midnight, mm (00-59) is the number of minutes that have passed since the last full hour. To convert hours greater then 12 to 12-hour clock just subtract 12 from the given hours and that will give you the PM time. . more .

See, what time is in the other military time zones at XXXXZ (Zulu Time) .
Click on the table row to change the time zone.

Military Time: The 24-Hour Clock

Military time employs the 24-hour format and the NATO phonetic alphabet. Learn how it works and how to convert it to a time format you’re used to.

A C17 Globemaster III taking off: the military uses the 24-hour clock.

Meet Me at 1530R

Imagine you’re supposed to meet a friend online at 1530R. How would you translate that from the military time format into plain English and make sure you meet up at the correct time?

The beautiful thing about military time is that it’s both concise and precise. With just four numbers and one letter, you can pinpoint an exact moment in time and even specify the time zone. However, it does take some getting used to.

Learn to Use Military Time

So, let’s dissect 1530R. What does this clock notation tell us?

• The four numbers refer to the local time of day: the first two digits signify the hour of the day, and the last two digits show the number of minutes past the hour.
• The letter suffix tells us the time zone.

Let’s look at those three elements of military time in more detail.

1. Hours

This part of the military time system is a little tricky for those of us who are used to the 12-hour clock (AM/PM). Military time uses the 24-hour clock, where the hours of the day are numbered from zero to 23, starting with 00 at midnight.

Converting military time to the 12-hour format is simple for the first half of the day, from 1 am to 12 pm, as the numbers are the same in both systems. The only difference is that the 24-hour format adds a leading zero to single-digit numbers.

What Is Military Time?

Military time is a format for expressing time based on the 24-hour clock. It uses a special notation and pronunciation geared toward clarity and conciseness.

Although it is often used as a synonym for the 24-hour clock, and the two are closely related, they are not the same. The 24-hour clock is the world’s most widely used time format, while military time is only used in some contexts, such as the military and emergency services.

The real fun starts after 12 noon when the 12-hour system jumps all the way back to 1 while the 24-hour system just keeps counting upward. In other words, for the period from 1 pm to 12 am, you have to subtract 12 to convert to the 12-hour format.

So, 1:00 pm translates as 13:00, and 11 pm is 23:00. At 12 am (midnight), the hour count is reset to 00.

Note that military time doesn’t use a separator between the hours and the minutes. So, 01:00 is written as 0100 and 23:00 as 2300.

2. Minutes

This is the easy part: the minutes work exactly the same as in the 12-hour clock format. They tell you the number of minutes past the hour. Some examples:

3. Military Time Zones

This brings us to the final segment of the military time notation: the letter at the end designating the time zone.

Time zones are complex: there are crooked time zone boundaries, areas with odd offsets, additional time zones lurking in a bulge of the International Date Line, and hundreds of official and unofficial time zone designations. And then, there’s Daylight Saving Time (DST), changing the UTC offset twice a year—but only in some areas.

What Is UTC?

UTC is a universal time standard used as a basis for time zones worldwide. It shares its local time with Greenwich Mean Time or GMT.

To minimize confusion, military time blends out all those oddities and exceptions and uses only the 25 primary, full-hour time zones, from UTC-12 to UTC+12.

A letter is assigned to each time zone. It starts with the letter A for UTC+1 and ends with the letter Z for UTC. See full list of military time zones

Now, remember the hypothetical meeting at 1530R mentioned earlier? The letter R refers to UTC-5, so your friend will expect you at 3:30 pm Eastern Standard Time (EST).

How to Say Military Time

Now that you can read military time, it’s time to learn how to say it. Imagine a new scenario: instead of meeting a friend for a chat, you’re a doctor in a hectic emergency room or a military pilot flying a mission.

Military time provides crucial clarity in emergency rooms and other high-stakes situations.

In those high-pressure situations, it can be crucial to communicate a time clearly and leave as little room for ambiguity and misunderstandings as possible.

That’s why military time uses a special code. It takes a bit longer to say it, but adding those extra syllables will make it easier to understand what you’re saying, even through the commotion in an ER or over a crackling radio.

1. Pronounce the Leading Zero

The first thing you need to get used to is pronouncing the leading zero if there is one.

• One o’clock at night (written 01) is stated as “zero one” instead of just “one.”
• Nine o’clock in the morning (09) is “zero nine.”
• But, ten o’clock (10) doesn’t have a leading zero, so it is simply “ten.” The same goes for all numbers up to 23.

2. Say “Hundred” for Full Hours

The next portion of the military time code will tell the recipient that you are referring to a full hour (e.g., five o’clock) and not a time in-between full hours (e.g., half past five).

In military time, this is done by using the word “hundred,” followed by “hours.” You never say “thousand,” even for times like 1000 (ten o’clock).

• Three o’clock at night (0300) is “zero three hundred hours.“
• Ten o’clock in the morning (1000) is “ten hundred hours.”
• Eleven at night (2300) is “twenty-three hundred hours.”

Commercial pilots also use the 24-hour clock to avoid misunderstandings.

3. Drop the “Hundred” for In-between Times

To communicate times like half past or quarter to the hour, you can omit the “hundred” and just state the numbers. Remember: the last two digits of the number are the minutes past the hour. So, half past five in the morning is written as 0530.

• Half past five in the morning (0530) is pronounced as “zero five thirty hours.”
• A quarter to ten in the morning (0945) is “zero nine forty-five hours.”
• A quarter past four in the afternoon (1615) is “sixteen fifteen hours.“

4. Use the NATO Phonetic Alphabet for the Time Zone

The last bit is the time zone. As you already know, it is written as a letter—but it is pronounced using a code word starting with that letter. This helps distinguish similarly-sounding letters like M and N.

Military time uses an internationally agreed list of words provided by the NATO phonetic alphabet.

Alfa and Juliett Time

The official spelling of the A and J time zones is “Alfa” and “Juliett.” Nowadays, however, the English spellings, “Alpha” and “Juliet,” are more widely used.

For example, A is Alpha, B is Bravo, and C is Charlie.

UTC, the central and most widely used time zone, is assigned the letter Z and is pronounced Zulu time.

Juliet Time

If you look at our list of military time zones, you will notice that the letter J is missing. J Time, or Juliet Time, does not refer to a particular time zone but can be used to denote the local time of the person stating the time.

So, Juliet Time is different depending on the location of the observer.

Military Time vs Civilian Time

Train station in Amsterdam, Netherlands: the train to Den Helder leaves at three minutes to four (15:57).

If you grew up in the United States, you may think of the 24-hour clock as military time and the 12-hour clock as regular time or civilian time. (Some also use the term standard time, but that can be confusing since that can also denote the opposite of Daylight Saving Time.)

That distinction may hold water in the US, but don’t be surprised to see people (civilians, no less) in other countries using “military time” in their everyday life! If you travel to mainland Europe, your train may depart at 15:57 and the TV news may start at 21:00.

Most People Use the 24-Hour Clock

Of course, what they’re really doing is using the 24-hour clock, the world’s most widely used time format.

Military time, with its special notation and syntax, is usually only used in certain contexts. The military is an obvious example, but hospitals and emergency services also use the 24-hour timekeeping system.

Broadly speaking, it’s mainly the English-speaking countries that use AM and PM to express the time of day. The rest of the world says 19:00 or 1900 instead of 7 pm—be it to plan military operations or tell each other when dinner is ready.

Military Time Conversion Chart

Military Time Converter

Confused about how to write down military time, or how a specific time of day would be written in the military time format? This tool can help you convert military time into standard time, and vice versa.

What is military time?

Military time is a US term used to describe a timekeeping method otherwise known as the 24-hour clock.

This timekeeping standard is widely used around the world, except in the US and several other countries, such as the following:

The use of the 24-hour clock format is also encouraged by ISO 8601 international standards — established with the intention to provide clear and specific ways to communicate date and time.

How is military time different from standard US time?

The standard US timekeeping method uses the 12-hour clock.

This clock splits the day into two blocks of time:

• First block — starts at midnight (12:00 a.m.) and ends at noon (12:00 p.m.)
• Second block — starts at noon (12:00 p.m.) and ends at midnight (12:00 a.m.)

So, here are a couple of examples to illustrate the standard format used in the US to show time:

We see here that the US standard time uses the abbreviations “a.m.” and “PM” to signify time before noon and time after noon, respectively.

These abbreviations come from Latin terms:

On the other hand, the 24-hour clock uses a unique number for each hour of the day, starting at 12:00 AM or midnight. But, unlike standard US time, by using the 24-hour clock, we would indicate midnight as 00:00.

Next, the times between midnight and 12:59 PM in the 24-hour clock format are the same as in the 12-hour format, with the exception of the AM/PM abbreviations, which are omitted in the former.

The count of hours after 12:59 PM is simply continued, so that 1:00 PM equals 13:00, 6:24 PM equals 18:24, and so on.

Where and why is military time used?

In the US, the 24-hour clock is used in specialist areas, such as:

• Aviation
• Navigation
• Tourism
• Meteorology
• Astronomy
• Computing
• Logistics
• Emergency services
• The military

The reasons behind the use of military time in these areas include the following:

• To avoid ambiguity in critical situations
• To make collaborative work more convenient by using a shorter and more machine-friendly format (no separators or abbreviations)
• To align with the internationally accepted time formatting within the mentioned professions

Difference between the 24-hour clock and military time formats

Military time slightly differs from the 24-hour clock used in other fields.

Namely, US military forces, as well as allied English-speaking military forces, make the following changes to the standard 24-hour format:

• There is no separator between the first two digits (the ones representing the hours) and the last two digits (those representing minutes).
• Military time uses leading zeros in writing. For example, 9:45 in the 24-hour clock turns into 0945 in military time.
• When pronouncing military time, the leading zeros have to be said out loud.
• When pronouncing military time, you cannot use “thousands”. This means that 2000 military time is not pronounced as “two thousand”, but as one of the following:
  • “Twenty hundred”
  • “Twenty zero zero”
  • “Two zero zero zero”

  Is midnight 0000 or 2400?

  Simple answer — it’s either. Both ways of formatting are correct.

  However, there might be a subtle difference in interpretation.

  Namely, times from 00:00 to 00:01 can be used to signify the beginning, or more precisely — the first minute of a day.

  On the other hand, times between 2359 and 2400 represent the last minute of a given day.

  How do I convert military time?

  There are a few ways you can do this:

  • Step by step, manually
  • Using a Military Time Converter
  • Referencing the military time to regular time chart

  Step-by-step military time conversion

  Step-by-step conversion is the most time consuming way of converting military time.

  However, if you’re interested in time value formatting, following are the instructions to manual military to standard time conversion, as well as the reverse.

  From standard time to military time

  To convert standard to military time, take the following steps:

  • Standard time 12:00 AM in military time is either 0000 or 2400, as we’ve explained above.
  • Standard times 12:01 AM to 12:59 AM — remove the colon, then subtract 12 from the number designating the hours. In the end, remove AM/a.m.
    • Example: 12:56 AM > 1256 AM > 0056 AM > 0056
    • Example: 5:09 AM > 05:09 AM > 0509 AM > 0509
    • Example: 11:19 AM > 1119 AM > 1119
    • Example: 12:01 PM > 1201 PM > 1201
    • Example: 7:39 PM > 19:39 PM > 1929 PM > 1939

    From military time to standard time

    There are several rules you need to follow when converting military to standard time:

    • Military times 0000 and 2400 are used to signify 12:00 AM / midnight.
    • Military time 1200 is used to signify 12:00 PM / noon.
    • Military times between 0000 to 0059 — insert a colon between the fist two and last two digits. Next, add 12 to the number of hours. And finally, include the AM/a.m. abbreviation.
      • Example: 0001 > 00:01 > 12:01 > 12:01 AM
      • Example: 0446 > 446 > 4:46 > 4:46 AM
      • Example: 1123 > 11:23 > 11:23 AM
      • Example: 1234 > 12:34 > 12:34 PM
      • Example: 1716 > 17:16 > 5:16 > 5:16 PM

      Military time to regular time chart

      Finally, a simple chart can help you get a clear picture of the differences between military and standard time.

      The chart below gives you a blueprint you can use to convert military time to standard time, as well as the other way round.

      MILITARY TIME	STANDARD TIME
      0100	1:00 AM
      0200	2:00 AM
      0300	3:00 AM
      0400	4:00 AM
      0500	5:00 AM
      0600	6:00 AM
      0700	7:00 AM
      0800	8:00 AM
      0900	9:00 AM
      1000	10:00 AM
      1100	11:00 AM
      1200	12:00 PM || NOON
      1300	1:00 PM
      1400	2:00 PM
      1500	3:00 PM
      1600	4:00 PM
      1700	5:00 PM
      1800	6:00 PM
      1900	7:00 PM
      2000	8:00 PM
      2100	9:00 PM
      2200	10:00 PM
      2300	11:00 PM
      2400 or 0000	12:00 AM || MIDNIGHT

      Use any timekeeping format to track time with Clockify

      Converting between different timekeeping formats can quickly become confusing — especially if you’re looking to track the time you’ve spent working.

      Do you enter time in the 12-hour format?

      Do you enter time in the 24-hour format?

      Can you play it simple and enter military time in a time tracker?

      Luckily, you can use any formatting method to manually add time in Clockify.

      This means that Clockify’s time tracker can recognize both military and standard time, as well as different variations of both of these methods.

      • Enter 24-hour time with or without a leading zero
      • Enter time with a dot, or even no separators at all
      • Enter time abbreviations in capital or lowercase letters, with or without colons

      As an addition, Clockify’s profile settings allow you to switch between the 12-hour and 24-hour format, allowing you to efficiently track time across professions that require a specific timekeeping format, as well as keep to international timekeeping standards.