Military time, also known as 24-hour time, is used by the military, emergency services, and many countries around the world to avoid confusion between A.M. and P.M. Learning to read it is a simple skill that can be very useful. This guide and our military time chart will make it easy.

The Two Simple Rules for Converting Military Time

There are only two rules you need to know to convert any 24-hour time to standard 12-hour time.

1. For Morning Hours (00:00 to 11:59):
Simply add "A.M." to the end. If the first digit is a zero, you can remove it.

• 01:00 = 1:00 A.M.

• 09:30 = 9:30 A.M.

• 00:00 is a special case: it represents midnight (12:00 A.M.).

2. For Afternoon/Evening Hours (12:00 to 23:59):
If the hour is 13 or greater, simply subtract 12 and add "P.M."

• 14:00 -> 14 - 12 = 2, so it's 2:00 P.M.

• 18:00 -> 18 - 12 = 6, so it's 6:00 P.M.

• 12:00 is a special case: it is noon, so it's simply 12:00 P.M.

Military Time Conversion Chart

Military Time	Standard Time
00:00	12:00 A.M. (Midnight)
06:00	6:00 A.M.
12:00	12:00 P.M. (Noon)
13:00	1:00 P.M.
14:00	2:00 P.M.
18:00	6:00 P.M.
21:00	9:00 P.M.

Internal Link: For other time calculations, like finding the duration between two times, check out our main Time Converter.