- How many mL are in a cup?
- 236.5882365 mL for a US customary cup — call it 237 mL, or 240 mL if you're rounding the way a nutrition label does. A metric cup is exactly 250 mL, a US legal cup is exactly 240 mL, and a UK imperial cup is exactly 284.130625 mL. To convert, multiply your cups by whichever of those matches your recipe. This page shows all four at once so you don't have to pick blind.
- Why are there four different cups?
- Because the cup was never standardised across borders. The US customary cup is half a US liquid pint, which traces back to a gallon defined as 231 cubic inches — that's where the awkward 236.5882365 comes from. The metric cup is a round 250 mL, adopted by Australia, New Zealand and Canada precisely because the old number was awkward. The US legal cup is 240 mL, a rounding the FDA uses for nutrition labels so serving sizes come out tidy. The UK imperial cup is half an imperial pint, 284.13 mL, and shows up in British cookbooks from before the UK went metric.
- Which cup should I use for an American recipe?
- The US customary cup — the big number at the top. American recipes, American measuring cup sets, and American cookbooks all mean 236.59 mL. The 240 mL legal cup only appears on packaging: if you're reading a serving size off the side of a cereal box, that's the 240. For cooking, the difference between 237 and 240 mL is under a teaspoon, so it almost never matters in a single batch — but it drifts once you're scaling a recipe by eight.
- How many mL is 3/4 cup?
- 177.44 mL with a US cup — 177 mL is close enough for anything you'd cook. With a metric cup it's 187.5 mL, and with a UK imperial cup it's 213.1 mL. Type 3/4 into the box and you'll get all three. The common amounts table on this page covers ⅛ through 4 cups if you'd rather scan than type.
- Can I use this to convert cups of flour or sugar?
- For the volume, yes — a cup of anything occupies 236.59 mL of space. For the weight, no, and this is where most baking conversions go wrong. A cup of water is about 237 g, a cup of all-purpose flour is around 120–125 g depending on whether you scooped or spooned it, and a cup of honey is about 340 g. If your recipe wants grams, use the cups to grams converter, which knows the density of each ingredient. Millilitres and grams are only interchangeable for water and things close to it.
- How do I measure a cup without a measuring cup?
- With spoons: 1 US cup is exactly 16 tablespoons or 48 teaspoons, so ¾ cup is 12 tablespoons and ⅓ cup is 5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon. Those counts are in the result footer for whatever you type. A standard US kitchen tablespoon is 14.79 mL and a teaspoon is 4.93 mL — note that an Australian tablespoon is 20 mL, four teaspoons rather than three, which quietly breaks recipes that travel.
- What about Japanese recipes?
- A Japanese cup is 200 mL, smaller than all four on this page. It comes from the traditional gō measure used for rice and sake. If you're cooking from a Japanese recipe — or using the plastic cup that came with a rice cooker — 1 cup means 200 mL, so multiply your cups by 200 rather than using the US number. Using a US cup instead adds about 18% to every measurement.
- Is a cup 250 mL?
- Only if it's a metric cup. Australia, New Zealand, Canada and most modern UK recipes use 250 mL, and it's a deliberately round number. American recipes do not — they're 236.59 mL, about 5% less. Five percent sounds ignorable, and for a cup of stock it is. For a cup of flour in a cake, it's about seven extra grams per cup, which is enough to stiffen the crumb once you're three cups in.
- How precise is the answer?
- The math uses the exact defined values for all four cups, so the only rounding is for display: four decimals from 1 mL up, six below that. Very large amounts show as whole millilitres with commas rather than switching to scientific notation. Copy formula gives you the full calculation if you need to show your work.
- Is what I type saved or sent anywhere?
- No. The conversion runs in your browser. Nothing goes to a server, nothing is stored, and closing the tab clears it. No sign-up, no limit on how many times you use it.
