Cron Expression Examples for Common Schedules

Cron Syntax Reference

Standard Unix cron uses five fields separated by spaces:

┌─────────── minute (0–59)
│ ┌─────────── hour (0–23)
│ │ ┌─────────── day of month (1–31)
│ │ │ ┌─────────── month (1–12)
│ │ │ │ ┌─────────── day of week (0–6, Sunday=0)
│ │ │ │ │
* * * * *

Special characters:

• * — any value
• */n — every n units (step)
• a,b — list of values
• a-b — range of values
• a-b/n — range with step

Every N Minutes / Hours

# Every minute
* * * * *

# Every 5 minutes
*/5 * * * *

# Every 15 minutes
*/15 * * * *

# Every 30 minutes
*/30 * * * *

# Every hour (at minute 0)
0 * * * *

# Every 2 hours
0 */2 * * *

# Every 6 hours
0 */6 * * *

Daily Schedules

# Every day at midnight
0 0 * * *

# Every day at 6 AM
0 6 * * *

# Every day at 9 AM
0 9 * * *

# Twice daily at 8 AM and 8 PM
0 8,20 * * *

# Every day at 11:30 PM
30 23 * * *

Weekly Schedules

# Every Sunday at midnight (day 0 = Sunday)
0 0 * * 0

# Every Monday at 7 AM
0 7 * * 1

# Every Friday at 6 PM
0 18 * * 5

# Every weekday (Mon–Fri) at 9 AM
0 9 * * 1-5

# Every weekend (Sat–Sun) at noon
0 12 * * 0,6

Monthly Schedules

# First of every month at midnight
0 0 1 * *

# Last day approximation (days 28-31)
0 0 28-31 * *

# First of every quarter (Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct)
0 0 1 1,4,7,10 *

# Every month on the 15th at noon
0 12 15 * *

# Once a year on January 1st
0 0 1 1 *

Business Hours

# Every hour during business hours Mon–Fri (9 AM – 5 PM)
0 9-17 * * 1-5

# Every 15 minutes during business hours
*/15 9-17 * * 1-5

# Monday morning report at 8 AM
0 8 * * 1

# Friday end-of-day at 5 PM
0 17 * * 5

# Weekday noon check
0 12 * * 1-5

Use the Cron Expression Builder to build and validate expressions interactively, and to calculate the next execution times for any expression.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Sunday 0 or 7?

In standard Unix cron, Sunday is both 0 and 7. Most implementations accept either value. If you use Quartz Cron (common in Java schedulers), the field order differs: Quartz adds a seconds field before minutes, making it 6 fields instead of 5.

How do I run a job every 10 seconds?

Standard cron has a minimum resolution of 1 minute. For sub-minute scheduling, you need a different tool: systemd timers (Linux), Task Scheduler (Windows), or an application-level scheduler like cron in Node.js (node-cron) or Python (APScheduler).

What timezone does cron use?

System cron uses the server's local timezone. This matters for maintenance windows — if your server is in UTC but your business hours are in US Eastern, adjust accordingly. AWS EventBridge and most cloud schedulers let you specify a timezone explicitly.

How do I test a cron expression without waiting?

Use the Cron Builder's Analyzer tab to see the next 10 execution times for any expression. This is faster and safer than waiting for a cron job to fire in production.