ML to Cups Converter: US, Metric and Imperial Cups

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ML to Cups Converter

Convert millilitres to cups and cups to millilitres, and between every other kitchen and household volume unit: litres, fluid ounces, tablespoons, pints, quarts and gallons. There is more than one cup in the world, and the biggest is more than 40 percent larger than the smallest, so every answer here shows the amount in all of them side by side, and in the measuring cups and spoons you would actually use to make it up.

Fractions work: type 1/3, 3/4 or 1 1/2.

The same amount in every cuptap a card to convert to that cup
In measuring cups and spoonsthe fewest pieces within one percent, or a millilitre for small amounts
The same volume in every unittap a card to copy its value

On a measuring jug

One amount, seven different cups

Amounts around yourseach row is a link

Every factor here is exact by definition. The US gallon is 231 cubic inches and the inch is exactly 2.54 centimetres, which makes the US gallon exactly 3.785411784 litres, the US cup a sixteenth of that at 236.5882365 millilitres, the US fluid ounce 29.5735295625 millilitres and the US tablespoon 14.78676478125. The imperial gallon is defined as exactly 4.54609 litres, which puts the imperial fluid ounce at 28.4130625 millilitres and the imperial pint at 568.26125. The US legal cup of 240 millilitres is the one US nutrition labels use, under 21 CFR 101.9. The metric cup is 250 millilitres, the Japanese cup 200, and the rice cooker cup is one gō, fixed in 1891 at 2,401/13,310 of a litre, about 180.4 millilitres. The CSV, image and printed report contain the values you entered, nothing preloaded.

How to use this tool

Type an amount, pick the unit it is in and the unit you want, and the answer appears as you type. The amount box takes fractions as well as decimals, so 1/3, 3/4 and 1 1/2 all work, which is how cup measures are usually written. Swap turns the conversion round and carries the answer across as the new amount.

The panel under the inputs shows the same amount in all seven cups in common use, because a cup is not one size. Tap any of them to make it the target unit. Below that, the measuring cups and spoons panel works out the fewest pieces from a standard US set, and from a metric set, that get you within one percent of the amount, and tells you how far off that combination is. For 250 ml that is 1 cup + 1 tbsp in US measures, or exactly one metric cup.

Every other unit is here too: litres, US and imperial gallons, pints and quarts, US and imperial fluid ounces, US, metric and Australian tablespoons, teaspoons, and cubic inches, feet and metres. The jug graphic shows where the amount would sit on a measuring jug, and the table at the bottom steps through amounts around yours, each one a link.

How many ml in a cup

A US cup is 236.59 ml. That is the cup American recipes mean and the one American measuring cups hold, and it is exact: the US gallon is defined as 231 cubic inches, which is 3.785411784 litres, and a cup is a sixteenth of that, 236.5882365 ml. So 250 ml is 1.057 US cups, 500 ml is 2.113 and a litre is 4.227.

The trouble is that a US cup is not the only cup. Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa use a metric cup of exactly 250 ml. US food labels use a rounded cup of 240 ml, set by the Food and Drug Administration for serving sizes. Japan uses a 200 ml cup, and a rice cooker comes with a cup of about 180 ml. Older British recipes sometimes mean an imperial cup of half an imperial pint, 284.13 ml. Between the smallest and largest that is a difference of more than half.

Two panel diagram: seven measuring cups drawn to scale from the 180 ml rice cooker cup through the 200 ml Japanese, 227 ml old Canadian, 236.6 ml US customary, 240 ml US legal and 250 ml metric cups to the 284 ml imperial cup, and a table of the most searched ml to cups conversions with the US cups and the fewest US cups and spoons for each, above a row of cup fractions in millilitres
Seven cups share the name. For most recipes the one that matters is whether the author meant the 236.6 ml US cup or the 250 ml metric one.

Which cup does your recipe mean

American recipes, websites and packaging: the US customary cup, 236.59 ml. A US measuring cup set holds this. When the recipe also lists fluid ounces, 8 of them make a cup.

US nutrition labels: the legal cup of 240 ml. A serving of 1 cup on a carton of milk or a box of cereal means 240 ml. It is 1.4 percent bigger than a measuring cup, which is too small a difference to matter in the kitchen.

Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and modern Canadian recipes: the metric cup, 250 ml. Canada used an older cup of 8 imperial fluid ounces, 227.3 ml, which still turns up in recipes from before metrication. Australian recipes also use a 20 ml tablespoon, a third bigger than the 15 ml tablespoon used almost everywhere else.

Japan: 200 ml for cooking, and the gō of about 180 ml for rice, which is the cup that comes with a rice cooker. A recipe that says 2 cups of rice for a rice cooker means about 360 ml, not 473.

Britain: modern British recipes are written in grams and millilitres and rarely use cups. When they do, they usually mean a US or metric cup. The imperial cup of 284.13 ml, half an imperial pint, belongs to older cookbooks.

ml to cups, the amounts people look up

Exact arithmetic on the definitions. The last column is the fewest pieces from a standard US set of 1, 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4 cups plus tablespoon and teaspoon measures that gets within one percent, which is closer than anyone pours.

MillilitresUS cupsMetric cupsImperial cupsIn US cups and spoons
30 ml0.1270.120.1062 tbsp
50 ml0.2110.20.1763 tbsp + 1 tsp
60 ml0.2540.240.2111/4 cup
100 ml0.4230.40.3521/3 cup + 1 tbsp + 1 1/4 tsp
120 ml0.5070.480.4221/2 cup + 1/4 tsp
150 ml0.6340.60.5281/2 cup + 2 tbsp + 1/2 tsp
200 ml0.8450.80.7043/4 cup + 1 tbsp + 1 1/2 tsp
240 ml1.010.960.8451 cup + 1/2 tsp
250 ml1.0610.881 cup + 1 tbsp
300 ml1.271.21.061 1/4 cups + 1 tsp
350 ml1.481.41.231 1/3 cups + 2 tbsp + 1 tsp
400 ml1.691.61.411 1/2 cups + 3 tbsp
500 ml2.1121.762 cups + 2 tbsp
600 ml2.542.42.112 1/2 cups + 2 tsp
750 ml3.1732.643 cups + 3 tbsp
1,000 ml4.2343.524 1/4 cups

Every row is a link that opens the converter on that amount.

Cups to ml

The same conversion the other way, for the cup fractions recipes use. A US cup is 236.59 ml, so a half cup is 118.29, a third 78.86 and a quarter 59.15. A metric cup is 250 ml, so its fractions are round numbers: 125, 83.33 and 62.5.

CupsUS cups in mlMetric cups in mlImperial cups in mlUS tablespoons
1/8 cup29.5731.2535.522
1/4 cup59.1562.571.034
1/3 cup78.8683.3394.715.33
1/2 cup118.29125142.078
2/3 cup157.73166.67189.4210.67
3/4 cup177.44187.5213.112
1 cup236.59250284.1316
1 1/4 cups295.74312.5355.1620
1 1/2 cups354.88375426.224
2 cups473.18500568.2632
3 cups709.76750852.3948
4 cups946.351,0001,136.5264

The US column opens the converter; a US cup is exactly 16 US tablespoons.

Fluid ounces, and the other unit with two sizes

The cup is not the only kitchen unit that changes size across the Atlantic. A US fluid ounce is 29.57 ml and an imperial fluid ounce is 28.41, so a recipe in fluid ounces is out by about four percent if you use the wrong one. The reason they differ is that an imperial pint holds 20 of its fluid ounces while a US pint holds 16 of its own, which also makes a British pint 568 ml against the American 473.

That is where the 8 fluid ounces in a US cup comes from: a US cup is half a US pint. Add the ounce trap on top and the same word covers three things, because an ounce of weight, 28.35 grams, is not a fluid ounce of volume at all. Eight fluid ounces of water weighs about 8.3 ounces, eight fluid ounces of flour about 4.3.

For litres, gallons, quarts and tank or container volumes rather than kitchen amounts, the volume and capacity converter covers the same units with the larger measures in front.

A worked check you can repeat on paper

Take 250 ml to US cups. A US cup is 236.5882365 ml, so 250 divided by 236.5882365 is 1.056688, which is 1.06 cups to two decimal places. The leftover over one cup is 250 minus 236.59, which is 13.41 ml. A US tablespoon is 14.79 ml, so the leftover is 0.907 of a tablespoon. That is why the converter says 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon, 1.38 ml over.

Now the other way. Take 1/3 US cup to ml: 236.5882365 divided by 3 is 78.8627 ml. In metric measures that is a quarter cup of 62.5 ml, plus a 15 ml tablespoon, plus a quarter of a 5 ml teaspoon, which comes to 78.75 ml, a tenth of a millilitre short.

Mistakes that catch people out

Assuming a cup is 250 ml in an American recipe. It is 236.59. The 5.7 percent difference is invisible in a soup and noticeable in a cake.

Measuring liquids in dry measuring cups. Dry cups are made to be filled to the brim and levelled, which you cannot do with milk. Use a jug with the marks below the rim, on a flat surface, and read it at eye level.

Converting flour or sugar by volume. A cup is a volume, and a cup of flour can weigh anything from about 110 to 150 grams depending on how it was filled. Weigh dry ingredients, and use the cups to grams converter to turn a cup measure into grams.

Mixing US and imperial pints and gallons. Twenty percent is a big error. A British recipe calling for a pint of stock means 568 ml, not 473.

Using an Australian tablespoon for an American recipe. It is 20 ml against 14.79. For baking powder, salt or yeast, that third extra is enough to taste.

Popular volume conversions

Each opens the converter on that amount with its own address, and every value can be changed once it is open.

ml to cups

5 ml to cups10 ml to cups15 ml to cups20 ml to cups25 ml to cups30 ml to cups35 ml to cups40 ml to cups45 ml to cups50 ml to cups60 ml to cups70 ml to cups75 ml to cups80 ml to cups85 ml to cups90 ml to cups100 ml to cups110 ml to cups118 ml to cups120 ml to cups125 ml to cups130 ml to cups135 ml to cups140 ml to cups150 ml to cups160 ml to cups170 ml to cups175 ml to cups180 ml to cups187 ml to cups190 ml to cups200 ml to cups210 ml to cups220 ml to cups225 ml to cups230 ml to cups235 ml to cups236 ml to cups237 ml to cups240 ml to cups250 ml to cups260 ml to cups270 ml to cups275 ml to cups280 ml to cups300 ml to cups320 ml to cups325 ml to cups330 ml to cups340 ml to cups350 ml to cups354 ml to cups355 ml to cups360 ml to cups370 ml to cups375 ml to cups390 ml to cups400 ml to cups420 ml to cups450 ml to cups473 ml to cups475 ml to cups480 ml to cups500 ml to cups540 ml to cups550 ml to cups600 ml to cups650 ml to cups700 ml to cups720 ml to cups750 ml to cups800 ml to cups850 ml to cups900 ml to cups946 ml to cups950 ml to cups1,000 ml to cups1,100 ml to cups1,200 ml to cups1,250 ml to cups1,300 ml to cups1,400 ml to cups1,500 ml to cups1,600 ml to cups1,800 ml to cups2,000 ml to cups3,000 ml to cups4,000 ml to cups

Cups to ml

1/8 cup to ml1/4 cup to ml1/3 cup to ml3/8 cup to ml1/2 cup to ml5/8 cup to ml2/3 cup to ml3/4 cup to ml7/8 cup to ml1 cup to ml1 1/4 cups to ml1 1/3 cups to ml1 1/2 cups to ml1 2/3 cups to ml1 3/4 cups to ml2 cups to ml2 1/4 cups to ml2 1/3 cups to ml2 1/2 cups to ml2 2/3 cups to ml2 3/4 cups to ml3 cups to ml3 1/2 cups to ml3 3/4 cups to ml4 cups to ml4 1/2 cups to ml5 cups to ml5 1/2 cups to ml6 cups to ml6 1/2 cups to ml7 cups to ml8 cups to ml9 cups to ml10 cups to ml11 cups to ml12 cups to ml13 cups to ml14 cups to ml15 cups to ml16 cups to ml20 cups to ml

Metric, imperial, Japanese and rice cooker cups

125 ml to metric cups250 ml to metric cups375 ml to metric cups500 ml to metric cups750 ml to metric cups1,000 ml to metric cups1/4 metric cup to ml1/2 metric cup to ml1 metric cup to ml2 metric cups to ml3 metric cups to ml1 metric cup to US cups2 metric cups to US cups3 metric cups to US cups4 metric cups to US cups1 US cup to metric cups2 US cups to metric cups250 ml to imperial cups500 ml to imperial cups1 imperial cup to ml2 imperial cups to ml1 US legal cup to ml1 Japanese cup to ml2 Japanese cups to ml1 rice cooker cup to ml2 rice cooker cups to ml3 rice cooker cups to ml4 rice cooker cups to ml180 ml to rice cooker cups360 ml to rice cooker cups540 ml to rice cooker cups

Tablespoons and teaspoons

1 tablespoon to ml2 tablespoons to ml3 tablespoons to ml4 tablespoons to ml1 teaspoon to ml2 teaspoons to ml3 teaspoons to ml5 ml to tablespoons10 ml to tablespoons15 ml to tablespoons20 ml to tablespoons30 ml to tablespoons45 ml to tablespoons50 ml to tablespoons60 ml to tablespoons100 ml to tablespoons1 ml to teaspoons2.5 ml to teaspoons5 ml to teaspoons7.5 ml to teaspoons10 ml to teaspoons1/4 cup to tablespoons1/3 cup to tablespoons1/2 cup to tablespoons1 cup to tablespoons2 tablespoons to cups4 tablespoons to cups6 tablespoons to cups8 tablespoons to cups1 Australian tablespoon to ml2 Australian tablespoons to ml

Fluid ounces

30 ml to fl oz50 ml to fl oz60 ml to fl oz100 ml to fl oz120 ml to fl oz200 ml to fl oz250 ml to fl oz330 ml to fl oz355 ml to fl oz473 ml to fl oz500 ml to fl oz750 ml to fl oz1,000 ml to fl oz1 fl oz to ml2 fl oz to ml4 fl oz to ml6 fl oz to ml8 fl oz to ml12 fl oz to ml16 fl oz to ml20 fl oz to ml32 fl oz to ml64 fl oz to ml4 fl oz to cups8 fl oz to cups12 fl oz to cups16 fl oz to cups32 fl oz to cups1 cup to fl oz2 cups to fl oz3 cups to fl oz

How this was checked

Every factor was taken from the unit definitions rather than from a table of conversions: the inch at exactly 2.54 centimetres and the US gallon at 231 cubic inches, the imperial gallon at 4.54609 litres, the US legal cup at 240 ml from 21 CFR 101.9, the metric cup at 250 ml, the Japanese cup at 200 ml and the gō at 2,401/13,310 of a litre. Each factor was then checked by round trip: converting a value to every other unit and back returns the starting value to twelve significant figures.

The measuring cup breakdown was tested on every whole millilitre from 1 to 5,000 against both the US and metric sets, to confirm it always lands within one percent of the amount, or within a millilitre below 100 ml, where the smallest spoon in the set limits how close any combination can get, and that it never picks a longer combination when a shorter one is as close. Fraction input was tested with thirds, quarters, eighths and mixed numbers, and every address in the lists above was opened and checked for a distinct title, the right answer, charts that render, and clean CSV, image and print output containing only that conversion, at desktop, tablet and phone widths.

Common questions

How many ml in a cup?

A US cup, the one American recipes and measuring cups use, is 236.59 ml. A metric cup, used in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa, is exactly 250 ml. The cup on a US nutrition label is 240 ml, an imperial cup is 284.13 ml, and a Japanese cup is 200 ml. If a recipe just says a cup and it is American, use 236.59 ml, or round it to 240 for anything but baking.

How many cups is 250 ml?

250 ml is 1.06 US cups, which in US measures is 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon. It is exactly 1 metric cup, and 0.88 of an imperial cup. That is why 250 ml is the most searched conversion of all: it is a cup in most of the world and slightly more than a cup in the US.

How many cups is 500 ml?

500 ml is 2.11 US cups, or 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons in US measures. It is exactly 2 metric cups, and 1.76 imperial cups. A 500 ml bottle of water holds just over two American cups.

Is a cup 240 ml or 250 ml?

It depends where the recipe is from, and neither is the US measuring cup. 250 ml is the metric cup used in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. 240 ml is the rounded cup the US Food and Drug Administration uses on nutrition labels. The US customary cup that American measuring cups actually hold is 236.59 ml. The difference between 240 and 236.59 is only 1.4 percent and rarely matters; the difference between 250 and 236.59 is 5.7 percent, which can matter in baking.

How do I know which cup my recipe uses?

Go by where the recipe was written. American books, websites and packaging use the US cup of 236.59 ml. Australian, New Zealand, South African and modern Canadian recipes use the 250 ml metric cup. Japanese recipes use 200 ml, and a rice cooker’s own cup is about 180 ml. British recipes rarely use cups at all, and when they do they usually mean a US or metric cup rather than the old imperial one. If the recipe also gives grams or millilitres, trust those over the cups.

Can I convert ml to cups for flour or sugar?

You can convert the volume, but a millilitre measure of a dry ingredient is only as good as how it was packed. A US cup of all purpose flour weighs about 120 grams spooned in and closer to 145 scooped, a difference of a fifth. For dry ingredients, weigh them, and use the cups to grams converter to turn a cup measure into grams.

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