Time Converter

Supported time units

The converter handles three sub-second units (nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds), the everyday units (seconds, minutes, hours, days and weeks) and the long ones: months, quarters, years, decades and centuries. Every conversion runs through the same internal clock, so any unit can be turned into any other in one step.

Up to the week the units are exact multiples of a second. Beyond that, calendar units have no fixed length, so the converter uses averages.

How to convert time units

1. Type the amount in the first box.
2. Choose the unit of that amount, then the unit you want in the second drop-down.
3. Read the answer. Results are rounded to 14 decimal places, and very small values are written in scientific notation such as 3.169e-11.

result = amount × (length of source unit in seconds) ÷ (length of target unit in seconds)

Common conversions with examples

Minutes to hours. Divide by 60. 6 minutes is 0.1 hours, and 8 hours is 480 minutes. For a decimal-to-clock version of this, see the decimal to time converter.

Seconds to minutes. Divide by 60. 90 seconds is 1.5 minutes.

Minutes to seconds. Multiply by 60. 45 minutes is 45 × 60 = 2,700 seconds.

Hours to days. Divide by 24. 36 hours is 1.5 days, and 168 hours is exactly one week.

Hours to seconds. Multiply by 3,600. 2.5 hours is 2.5 × 3,600 = 9,000 seconds.

Months, years and other calendar units

A month can be 28 to 31 days and a year is 365 or 366, so a calendar unit can only be converted exactly if you know which dates are involved. The converter therefore uses the averages in the table above. A year is 365.25 days, a quarter is three months, a decade is ten years and a century is a hundred years.

Conversions between months and years use the plain ratio of 12 months to a year, while conversions from months to days use 30.437 days per month. Because the two routes use slightly different averages, converting a unit forwards and then back can differ slightly, and answers involving months should be treated as approximations.

For exact gaps between two dates, use a calendar tool such as the days between dates calculator.

Where to go for decimal hours, timestamps and zones

• Decimal hours such as 7.75 to hours and minutes: decimal to time converter.
• Timesheet entries in both directions: timesheet converter.
• Computer timestamps counted in seconds since 1 January 1970: Unix timestamp converter.
• A clock time in another city: time zone converter.

Worked examples with the Time Converter

Example 1. You enter: 6 Minutes · Hours.

Result: You get 0.1.

Example 2. You enter: 1 Milliseconds (ms) · Years.

Result: You get 3.169e-11.

Example 3. You enter: 1 Seconds (s) · Years.

Result: You get 3.168809e-8.

Common mistakes with the Time Converter

• Assuming a month has 30 days. A month is between 28 and 31 days, so a conversion to months is approximate.
• Using 365 days for every year. A leap year has 366.
• Mixing decimal and clock notation. 1.5 hours is 1 hour 30 minutes, not 1 hour 50 minutes.