Military Time Rules

Simple rules for converting between 12-hour and 24-hour (military) time.

24-hour counting

24-hour time counts 00 to 23. 00 is midnight, 12 is noon. Minutes 00–59 are unchanged.

Converting to military time

• 12:00 AM → 0000. For AM times 12:xx AM, use 00:xx.
• 1:00 AM – 11:59 AM → same hour, zero-padded: 1:00 AM → 0100, 11:30 AM → 1130.
• 12:00 PM → 1200.
• 1:00 PM – 11:59 PM → add 12: 1 PM → 1300, 5 PM → 1700, 11:59 PM → 2359.

Converting to standard time

• 0000 → 12:00 AM (midnight)
• 0001 – 0059 → 12:xx AM
• 0100 – 1159 → 1:00 AM – 11:59 AM
• 1200 → 12:00 PM (noon)
• 1300 – 2359 → subtract 12: 1300 → 1:00 PM, 2359 → 11:59 PM

Accepted input formats

This converter accepts:

• Military compact: 0000, 0100, 1730 (4-digit) and 730 (= 0730) as 3-digit shorthand for hours 0–9
• With separator: 00:00, 17:30, 00.00, 17.30 (hour 0–23, minutes 00–59)
• 12-hour with AM/PM: 7am, 7 AM, 7:00 PM, 07:00 PM (also a.m./p.m.)

Unsupported: 1700 hours, seconds, timezones, or extra text. Bare numbers like 7 without AM/PM are considered ambiguous.

Invalid examples rejected: 1360, 2560, 25:00, 17:75.

Minute-level examples

• 5:17 PM → 1717
• 17:17 → 5:17 PM
• 0515 → 5:15 AM

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