`0 15 * * *` — What does this cron expression mean?

0 15 * * * is a daytime schedule. Cron has no AM/PM, so “3 PM” is written as hour 15, and 0 3 * * * would be 3 AM. Unlike the nightly 2 AM or 4 AM jobs, a 15:00 job runs while people are working, which is usually the point: a report people read before they leave, or a reminder that has to arrive in office hours.

In plain English

0 15 * * *

Run the job once a day at exactly 15:00 (3:00 PM) in the scheduler's timezone.

Frequency: 1 run per day. cronstrue reads it as “At 15:00”.

Open 0 15 * * * in the Cron Builder

Field-by-field breakdown

Minute

0–59

Hour

0–23

Day of month

1–31

Month

1–12

Day of week

0–6

Minute0 — at minute 0.
Hour15 — at hour 15, which is 3 PM on the 24-hour clock.
Day of month* — every day of the month.
Month* — every month.
Day of week* — every day of the week, including weekends. Use 1-5 here for weekdays only.

Next run times

Example: next 5 runs

Example: if it is Monday, 5 Jan 2026, 09:07 UTC, the next runs of 0 15 * * * (UTC) are:

#1Mon, 5 Jan 2026, 15:00 UTCin 6h
#2Tue, 6 Jan 2026, 15:00 UTCin 1d
#3Wed, 7 Jan 2026, 15:00 UTCin 2d
#4Thu, 8 Jan 2026, 15:00 UTCin 3d
#5Fri, 9 Jan 2026, 15:00 UTCin 4d

Live times from your current clock replace this example once the page loads. Cron uses the scheduler's timezone; most cloud servers, GitHub Actions and AWS EventBridge rules use UTC.

0 15 * * * in Quartz, AWS, GitHub Actions, Kubernetes and systemd

Crontab (Linux / macOS)

0 15 * * * /usr/local/bin/job.sh >> /var/log/job.log 2>&1

Standard 5-field syntax used by Vixie cron, cronie, busybox crond and most libraries (node-cron, APScheduler, robfig/cron).

Quartz (6 and 7 fields)

0 0 15 * * ?
0 0 15 * * ? *

# Spring @Scheduled
@Scheduled(cron = "0 0 15 * * *")

Weekdays only in Quartz: 0 0 15 ? * MON-FRI. Quartz needs ? in day-of-month when day-of-week is set.

AWS EventBridge

cron(0 15 * * ? *)

15:00 UTC. Weekdays only: cron(0 15 ? * MON-FRI *). Note the ? moves to day-of-month when day-of-week is restricted.

GitHub Actions

on:
  schedule:
    # Every day at 3:00 PM, evaluated in UTC
    - cron: '0 15 * * *'

15:00 UTC is 11:00 in New York (EDT), 08:00 in San Francisco (PDT) and 16:00 or 17:00 in Berlin depending on DST, so one schedule falls inside working hours on both sides of the Atlantic.

Kubernetes CronJob

apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
  name: every-day-at-3pm
spec:
  schedule: "0 15 * * *"
  timeZone: "Etc/UTC"
  concurrencyPolicy: Forbid
  startingDeadlineSeconds: 900
  jobTemplate:
    spec:
      template:
        spec:
          restartPolicy: OnFailure
          containers:
            - name: job
              image: alpine:3.20
              command: ["/bin/sh", "-c", "echo running"]

Daytime jobs usually compete with production traffic. Set resource requests and limits so the Job cannot starve user-facing Pods.

systemd timer

# /etc/systemd/system/myjob.timer
[Unit]
Description=Every day at 3:00 PM

[Timer]
OnCalendar=*-*-* 15:00:00
Persistent=true

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

Weekdays only: OnCalendar=Mon..Fri *-*-* 15:00:00.

When to use every day at 3:00 pm

Daily status or sales summary sent before the end of the working day.
Reminders for open tickets, pending approvals or unsubmitted timesheets.
Midnight jobs for Japan or Korea when the server runs on UTC (15:00 UTC is 00:00 JST/KST).
Afternoon cache warm-up before a predictable evening traffic peak.

Common pitfalls with 0 15 * * *

3 PM is hour 15, not 3

Cron uses a 24-hour clock. 0 3 * * * runs at 3 AM, twelve hours away from what you meant. Double-check by reading the next run times above before deploying.

0 3 * * *    # 03:00, 3 AM
0 15 * * *   # 15:00, 3 PM

15:00 in which timezone?

On a UTC server, 0 15 * * * is midnight in Tokyo and Seoul, 11 AM in New York in summer (10 AM in winter) and 8 PM in Mumbai. If the job targets a specific office, set the scheduler's timezone (CRON_TZ, Kubernetes timeZone, Spring zone) instead of converting by hand.

Running during peak traffic

Unlike nightly jobs, a 15:00 job shares the database with real users. Batch heavy queries, use a read replica or lower the job's priority with nice/ionice so a report doesn't slow down checkout.

0 15 * * * nice -n 10 ionice -c3 /usr/local/bin/daily-report.sh

Related cron expressions

Every day at 4:00 AM

0 4 * * *

Every 6 hours

0 */6 * * *

Every day at midnight

0 0 * * *

Need a different schedule? Paste 0 15 * * * into the Cron Builder and edit it, browse all cron expressions, read the cron syntax guide or copy from the cron examples list.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 0 15 * * * mean in cron?▾

Once a day at 15:00, which is 3:00 PM. The 0 is the minute and the 15 is the hour on a 24-hour clock; the other fields are * so it runs every day.

How do I run a cron job at 3 PM on weekdays only?▾

Use 0 15 * * 1-5 in crontab (or 0 15 * * MON-FRI). In AWS EventBridge it is cron(0 15 ? * MON-FRI *), and in Quartz 0 0 15 ? * MON-FRI.

What is 0 15 * * * in AWS EventBridge?▾

cron(0 15 * * ? *). EventBridge rules use UTC, so this is 15:00 UTC every day. If you need 3 PM in a local timezone, use EventBridge Scheduler and set its timezone.

0 15 * * * — What does this cron expression mean?