How many tablespoons in a cup?

There are 16 tablespoons in 1 US cup (236.6 ml). There are 3 teaspoons in 1 tablespoon.

Is a U.S. cup the same as an Imperial cup?

No. A U.S. customary cup is 236.59 ml; an Imperial (U.K.) cup is 284 ml. For U.K./Australian/Commonwealth recipes, this matters.

How many milliliters in a fluid ounce?

1 U.S. fluid ounce = 29.57 ml. Note that this is volume — a weight ounce (oz) of a different ingredient may have different volume.

Cooking Unit Converter

Quickly convert cooking measurements between cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, milliliters, liters, and fluid ounces. Essential for following recipes from different countries.

Last updated: May 28, 2026

About this calculator

Recipes published in different countries use different volume measurements, and even within the U.S. there's a difference between the "U.S. customary cup" used in everyday cooking (236.6 ml) and the slightly larger "U.S. legal cup" used on food labels (240 ml). This converter handles the everyday cooking units: cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, milliliters, liters, and fluid ounces.

Enter an amount and the source unit, choose the destination unit, and the converter returns the equivalent. The conversions use U.S. customary units; if you're following an Imperial (U.K.) recipe, note that an Imperial cup is 284 ml — about 20% larger than a U.S. cup — and Imperial pints, quarts, and gallons are similarly larger.

For dry ingredients measured by volume in U.S. recipes (flour, sugar) being converted from gram measurements in European recipes, see the grams-to-cups calculator, which handles density-specific conversions.

Formula

Base conversions (U.S. customary): 1 cup = 16 tablespoons = 48 teaspoons = 236.59 ml = 8 fl oz 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons = 14.79 ml = 0.5 fl oz 1 teaspoon = 4.93 ml 1 fluid oz = 29.57 ml 1 liter = 1000 ml = ≈ 4.226 cups 1 ml = 0.0676 tablespoons Conversion procedure: Step 1: Convert source amount to milliliters (the common base) Step 2: Convert milliliters to destination unit Example: 0.75 cups → ml 0.75 × 236.59 = 177.4 ml Example: 30 ml → teaspoons 30 / 4.93 = 6.08 tsp ≈ 6 tsp (= 2 tbsp)

How to use this calculator

Enter the amount from your recipe.
Select the source unit (what the recipe uses).
Select the destination unit (what you have on your measuring spoons or scale).
For metric recipes converted to U.S. customary, round to the nearest practical measure — 177 ml ≈ ¾ cup, 250 ml ≈ 1 cup + 1 tbsp.
For very small amounts (a pinch, a dash), the technical equivalent matters less than the cook's judgment. A "pinch" is approximately 1/16 of a teaspoon.

Worked examples

European recipe

Recipe calls for 500 ml of milk. Your measuring cup is in U.S. cups. 500 / 236.59 = 2.11 cups In U.S. cooking practice, use 2 cups + 2 tablespoons. The result is close enough for almost any recipe.

Halving a recipe

Original recipe: 1.5 cups of flour. Need to halve to 0.75 cups. 0.75 cups = 12 tablespoons (since 1 cup = 16 tbsp) If your measuring cups go down to 1/4 cup, you can use ¾ cup directly. If you only have ¼ cup, that's 3 of those.

When to use this calculator

Use this any time you cook from a recipe written in different units than your measuring tools. For baking specifically, precise conversions matter — bread, cake, and pastry recipes can fail if liquid ratios are off by more than a few percent. For savory cooking, "close enough" is usually fine.

Two related tools handle adjacent problems: - Recipe scaler: multiplies an entire recipe up or down (e.g., halving or doubling) - Grams-to-cups: converts ingredient weights to volume, which depends on the specific ingredient (flour and water have very different densities)

For oven temperatures across units, use the temperature converter — recipes from Europe and the U.K. give oven temperatures in Celsius.

Common mistakes to avoid

Confusing U.S. customary cups (236.59 ml) with Imperial cups (284 ml) when following U.K. recipes. The difference can be 20% — significant in baking.
Using volume for ingredients that should be weighed. Flour packed into a cup measures very differently from flour sifted into a cup; weight is more reliable.
Mixing fluid ounces with weight ounces. A fluid ounce is volume; a weight ounce is mass. For water these happen to be roughly equal; for flour, butter, or sugar they're not.
Doubling a recipe without scaling baking soda/powder linearly. Some leavening agents need slight under-scaling at large multiples because they over-rise in larger batches.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources & further reading

Cooking measurement conversions — U.S. Department of Agriculture
NIST kitchen-conversion factors — U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology

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Cooking Unit Converter

Quickly convert cooking measurements between cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, milliliters, liters, and fluid ounces. Essential for following recipes from different countries.

Inputs

Amount

From Unit

To Unit

Results

Result

236.5880

All Conversions

Unit	Value
Cups	1
Tablespoons	16
Teaspoons	47.999
Milliliters	236.588
Liters	0.237
Fluid Ounces	8