Cron Expression Examples: Every Minute, Hour, Day, Week and More

Cron expressions follow a 5-field syntax that can express almost any recurring schedule. This is a practical reference of the most common patterns — copy-paste ready, with an explanation of what each field does.

Cron Field Reference

# ┌──────── minute (0–59)
# │ ┌────── hour (0–23)
# │ │ ┌──── day of month (1–31)
# │ │ │ ┌── month (1–12 or JAN–DEC)
# │ │ │ │ ┌ day of week (0–6, Sunday=0, or SUN–SAT)
# │ │ │ │ │
  * * * * *  command

Every Minute and Every N Minutes

Every Hour and Every N Hours

Every Day

Specific Days of the Week

Specific Days of the Month

Common Real-World Schedules

Cron Expressions in Popular Platforms

Most platforms use standard 5-field cron syntax, but some add a sixth field for seconds or use slightly different conventions:

# Standard Unix cron (5 fields)
# MIN HOUR DOM MON DOW
  0   9   *   *   1-5    # Weekdays at 9 AM

# GitHub Actions — uses standard 5-field syntax (UTC timezone)
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 9 * * 1-5'

# AWS EventBridge / CloudWatch Events — uses 6 fields (adds year)
# MIN HOUR DOM MON DOW YEAR
  0   9   *   *   MON-FRI  *

# Kubernetes CronJob — standard 5-field
spec:
  schedule: "0 2 * * *"

# Node.js node-cron — standard 5-field (or 6 with seconds)
cron.schedule('0 9 * * 1-5', () => { ... });

# Python APScheduler — standard 5-field
scheduler.add_job(fn, 'cron', hour=9, day_of_week='mon-fri')

# Laravel (PHP) — uses named methods instead of raw cron
->dailyAt('09:00')->weekdays()
# But also accepts: ->cron('0 9 * * 1-5')

Timezone Gotcha

Cron runs in the server's local timezone, which on most cloud servers (AWS, GCP, Azure) is UTC. If you want a job at 9 AM in London (BST, UTC+1), you need to set it to 0 8 * * *. If you're in New York (EDT, UTC-4), use 0 13 * * *.

# Job should run at 9:00 AM in each timezone:

# UTC (server default on most cloud providers)
0 9 * * *

# For 9 AM London (BST = UTC+1, summer)
0 8 * * *

# For 9 AM New York (EDT = UTC-4, summer)
0 13 * * *

# For 9 AM Tokyo (JST = UTC+9, no DST)
0 0 * * *

# Tip: set your server or container timezone explicitly
# In Docker: ENV TZ=Europe/London
# In Kubernetes: use spec.timeZone (K8s 1.27+):
spec:
  schedule: "0 9 * * 1-5"
  timeZone: "Europe/London"

Day-of-Month + Day-of-Week: The OR Trap

When you specify both a day-of-month and a day-of-week (neither is *), most cron implementations run the job when either condition is true — not when both are true simultaneously:

# You might expect: "on the 1st, but only if it's a Monday"
# What you actually get: "on the 1st OR on any Monday"
0 0 1 * 1

# To truly mean "first Monday of the month", you need a script:
# 0 0 * * 1 [ $(date +%d) -le 07 ] && /path/to/job

# Or use a platform that supports @monthly + weekday logic natively
# (e.g. AWS EventBridge, Python APScheduler)

Not sure your expression is correct? Test it in the Cron Expression Builder →