Tablespoons to Cups Converter
Enter tablespoons or teaspoons and read the amount as US legal cups or imperial cups. All of these are volumes, so the ingredient menu does not change the answer.
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Created by the Reeliy Editorial Team. Last updated: Oct 19, 2026
Tablespoons and cups in cooking
Cooks move between spoons and cups all the time: a stick of butter is eight tablespoons, a quarter cup is four. In the traditional US system the link is simple, because a cup holds exactly 16 tablespoons. The converter shows slightly different numbers for US spoons because it measures them against the 240 ml legal cup that appears on nutrition labels, not the 236.59 ml customary cup.
- US: one tablespoon is about 14.79 ml, so a legal cup holds 16.23 of them and 16 tablespoons make 0.986 of a legal cup.
- Imperial: one tablespoon is about 17.76 ml and one imperial cup about 284.13 ml, so 16 imperial tablespoons make exactly one imperial cup.
How to convert tablespoons to cups
- Enter the number of spoonfuls in the Convert box.
- Choose US Tablespoons, Imp. Tablespoons, US Teaspoons or Imp. Teaspoons as the starting unit.
- Pick US Legal Cups or Imperial Cups in the To menu. The answer updates as you type.
US legal cups = US tablespoons × 14.7868 ÷ 240
imperial cups = imperial tablespoons ÷ 16Teaspoons count as one third of a tablespoon. Answers are rounded to three decimals.
Worked examples
4 US tablespoons. 4 × 14.7868 = 59.15 ml, and 59.15 ÷ 240 = 0.2464, so the converter shows 0.246 cups. In the traditional system that is simply a quarter cup.
8 US tablespoons, one stick of butter. 8 × 14.7868 = 118.29 ml, which is 0.493 legal cups, essentially half a cup.
12 imperial tablespoons. 12 ÷ 16 = 0.75, and the converter agrees: 0.75 imperial cups, or three quarters of a cup.
9 US teaspoons. Nine teaspoons are three tablespoons, which is 0.185 cups. You can enter teaspoons directly without converting them yourself.
Tablespoons to cups conversion table
| Tablespoons | US tbsp → US legal cups | Imp. tbsp → imperial cups |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.062 | 0.063 |
| 2 | 0.123 | 0.125 |
| 3 | 0.185 | 0.188 |
| 4 | 0.246 | 0.25 |
| 5 | 0.308 | 0.313 |
| 6 | 0.37 | 0.375 |
| 8 | 0.493 | 0.5 |
| 10 | 0.616 | 0.625 |
| 12 | 0.739 | 0.75 |
| 16 | 0.986 | 1 |
| 24 | 1.479 | 1.5 |
| 32 | 1.972 | 2 |
Kitchen shortcuts in the traditional US system: 4 tablespoons are ¼ cup, 5⅓ tablespoons are ⅓ cup, 8 are ½ cup, 12 are ¾ cup and 16 make a full cup.
Why 16 tablespoons is not exactly one cup here
The traditional US cup is 8 US fluid ounces, or 236.59 ml, and each US tablespoon is half a fluid ounce, which is where the neat figure of 16 comes from. Food labelling law rounds the cup up to 240 ml and, separately, many recipes round a tablespoon to 15 ml. The converter follows the 240 ml cup, so you get 0.986 for 16 US tablespoons. The 1.4% gap is far below what most recipes can notice.
To go the other way, use the cups to tablespoons converter. To scale a whole ingredient list, try the recipe scaler.
Frequently asked questions
How many tablespoons are in a cup?
In the US customary system there are 16 tablespoons in a cup. Measured against the 240 ml legal cup used on nutrition labels, a cup holds about 16.2 US tablespoons. An imperial cup holds 16 imperial tablespoons.
How many cups is 8 tablespoons?
8 US tablespoons is half a cup in the traditional system, and 0.493 of a 240 ml legal cup.
How many tablespoons make a third of a cup?
Five and a third. In the converter, 5.333 US tablespoons come to 0.329 legal cups.
Does the ingredient matter when converting tablespoons to cups?
No. A tablespoon and a cup are both units of volume, so the answer is the same for water, flour or oil. The ingredient only matters for weights such as grams.
References
- NIST Special Publication 811, Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (SI)
- U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, 21 CFR 101.9, Nutrition labeling of food (household measures for nutrition labels)
Cite this converter and page
If you use this page in your work, you can cite it as:
Reeliy Editorial Team. (2026). Tablespoons to Cups Converter. Reeliy. https://reeliy.com/converters/convert-tbsp-to-cups“Tablespoons to Cups Converter.” Reeliy, 2026, https://reeliy.com/converters/convert-tbsp-to-cups.