How to Convert Time from 24 Hours to 12 Hours

If you’re confused when you see a clock showing the time in a format like 14:24, you’re probably not familiar with the 24-hour convention. This convention is commonly used in the US military, in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Fortunately, converting the time from conventional 24-hour to 12-hour (or standard) and vice versa is very simple. You just need to convert the hours, and keep the minutes.

Table of Contents

Convert time from 24 hours to 12 hours

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Add 12 to the first hour of the day and add “AM” (am). For the 24-hour time convention, midnight is displayed in the 00:00 format. So for midnight, you would add 12 and add “AM” to convert to the 12-hour convention. That means 00:13 by 24-hour convention becomes 12:13 AM (am) by 12-hour convention. ^{[1] X Research Source}

Do you know yet?
The English abbreviations “AM” and “PM” have Latin roots. The word “AM” stands for “ante meridiem” – which means “before noon”, while the word “PM” stands for “post meridiem” – which means “after noon”. ^{[2] X Research Source}

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Add “AM” (am) between 1:00 and 11:59. Since the 24-hour time convention goes from 00:00 (midnight) to 1:00, you can simply add “AM” between 1:00 and 11:59. You can also omit the leading zeros. For example, 06:28 24-hour time is equivalent to 6:28 AM (am) 12-hour convention. That means: ^{[3] X Research Sources}

01:00 = 1:00 AM (am)
02:00 = 2:00 AM (morning)
03:00 = 3:00 AM (morning)
04:00 = 4:00 AM (morning)
05:00 = 5:00 AM (morning)
06:00 = 6:00 AM (morning)
07:00 = 7:00 AM (morning)
08:00 = 8:00 AM (morning)
09:00 = 9:00 AM (morning)
10:00 = 10:00 AM (morning)
11:00 = 11:00 AM (morning)

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Add “PM” (noon/afternoon/evening/night) between 12:00 and 12:59. For the period after noon, simply add “PM” after the 24-hour convention to convert it to 12-hour convention. For example, 12:45 would become 12:45 PM (noon). ^{[4] X Research Sources}

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Subtract 12 for the period from 13:00 to 23:59 and add “PM”. For the period after noon, simply subtract 12 from the 24 hour convention, and add “PM” at the end. For example, to convert 14:36 to the 12-hour convention, you would subtract 12 from the number of hours, and the result would be 2:36, and then add “PM” (pm). You don’t need to add a zero before the conventional 12-hour single-digit time. Therefore: ^{[5] X Research Source}

13:00 = 1:00 PM (afternoon)
14:00 = 2:00 PM (afternoon)
15:00 = 3:00 PM (afternoon)
16:00 = 4:00 PM (afternoon)
17:00 = 5:00 PM (afternoon)
18:00 = 6:00 PM (afternoon)
19:00 = 7:00 PM (evening)
20:00 = 8:00 PM (evening)
21:00 = 9:00 PM (evening)
22:00 = 10:00 PM (night)
23:00 = 11:00 PM (night)

Convert time from conventional 12 hours to 24 hours

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Use 00:00 for midnight according to the 24-hour convention. Instead of using “12:00” twice as in the 12-hour convention, the 24-hour convention uses “00:00” for midnight. That means you only need to keep the minutes when converting the time. For example, 12:30 AM (am) becomes 00:30. ^{[6] X Research Source}

Do you know yet?
There is no 24:00 in the 24-hour convention because the time moves from 23:00 (11:00 p.m.) to 00:00 (12:00 a.m.).

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Remove “AM” (am) between 1:00 and 11:59 AM (am). Converting the time from midnight to noon from conventional 12 to 24 is very simple. You just need to leave out the “AM”. If the time had a single digit, you would add a zero. For example, 6:00 AM (am) becomes 06:00 and 10:15 AM (am) becomes 10:15. Therefore: ^{[7] X Research Source}

1:00 AM (am) = 01:00
2:00 AM (am) = 02:00
3:00 AM (am) = 03:00
4:00 AM (am) = 04:00
5:00 AM (am) = 05:00
6:00 AM (am) = 06:00
7:00 AM (am) = 07:00
8:00 AM (am) = 08:00
9:00 AM (morning) = 09:00
10:00 AM (morning) = 10:00
11:00 AM (am) = 11:00

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Keep the noon time, but omit the “PM”. You just need to drop “PM” when converting 12:00 PM (noon) to 12:00 in 24-hour format. For example, 12:22 PM (noon) becomes 12:22. ^{[8] X Research Sources}

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Add 12 between 1:00 and 11:59 PM (night) and omit “PM”. For afternoon, evening, and night hours, you simply add 12 to the 12-hour convention to convert to 24-hour convention. Also, leave out “PM”. That means 2:57 PM becomes 14:57 and 11:02 PM becomes 23:02. Therefore: ^{[9] X Research Source}

1:00 PM (afternoon) = 13:00
2:00 PM (afternoon) = 14:00
3:00 PM (afternoon) = 15:00
4:00 PM (afternoon) = 16:00
5:00 PM (afternoon) = 17:00
6:00 PM (afternoon) = 18:00
7:00 PM (evening) = 19:00
8:00 PM (evening) = 20:00
9:00 PM (evening) = 21:00
10:00 PM (night) = 22:00
11:00 PM (night) = 23:00

Advice

Note that “16:35” is read as sixteen hours and thirty-five minutes.
Also in English, the leading zero can now be read as “zero” or “oh” depending on the way people say it. For example, 08:00 is read as “oh-eight-hundred” or “zero-eight-hundred”. However, for “right time” or midnight (00:00), both zeros are usually not read.
If the time does not have a colon, you will add “hour” after the time to identify military time. For example, “1600” is read as “sixteen hundred hours” (16 hours) in English.
Practice a lot and you will get used to it! Some electronic devices have a setting that allows you to convert the conventional 12-hour time into 24-hour time to help you get used to reading the time.
Another simple and quick conversion is to take the second number of hours minus 2 and the first number of hours greater than 12 minus 1 (for example, 17:00 – 2 = 5:00 PM (pm); 22:00 – 2 = 10:00 PM (night)). If you get a negative result, you need to “compensate” for this digit by borrowing a value from the first digit, then subtracting this value from the first number and subtracting 1 (fortunately that’s not the case). This only happens in 2 cases: 20:00 or 8:00 PM (evening) and 21:00 or 9:00 PM).

Steps

Convert time from 24 hours to 12 hours

Convert time from conventional 12 hours to 24 hours

Advice

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