Convert millilitres to cups
Millilitres to cups in all four standards at once — US customary, US legal, metric and imperial — plus fluid ounces, tablespoons and teaspoons.
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Fractions are fine — type 1 1/2, 3/4 or 1.5.
Cups are not standardised. Picking the wrong one is a 5–20% error.
Water: 236.6 g per US cup (236.6 mL) — a density of 1.000 g/mL. The only ingredient where 1 mL really does weigh 1 g.
cups = millilitres ÷ (millilitres per cup) cups = 500.0 ÷ 236.5882 cups = 2.113 (US customary cup (236.6 mL))
| mL | US cups | Metric cups | UK imperial cups | US fl oz |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 mL | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.17 |
| 15 mL | 1/8 | 0 | 0 | 0.51 |
| 30 mL | 1/8 | 1/8 | 1/8 | 1.01 |
| 50 mL | 1/4 | 1/4 | 1/8 | 1.69 |
| 60 mL | 1/4 | 1/4 | 1/4 | 2.03 |
| 100 mL | 3/8 | 3/8 | 3/8 | 3.38 |
| 118 mL | 1/2 | 1/2 | 3/8 | 3.99 |
| 125 mL | 1/2 | 1/2 | 1/2 | 4.23 |
| 150 mL | 5/8 | 5/8 | 1/2 | 5.07 |
| 200 mL | 7/8 | 3/4 | 3/4 | 6.76 |
| 236.6 mL | 1 | 1 | 7/8 | 8.00 |
| 240 mL | 1 | 1 | 7/8 | 8.12 |
| 250 mL | 1 | 1 | 7/8 | 8.45 |
| 300 mL | 1 1/4 | 1 1/4 | 1 | 10.14 |
| 473 mL | 2 | 1 7/8 | 1 5/8 | 15.99 |
| 500 mL | 2 1/8 | 2 | 1 3/4 | 16.91 |
| 750 mL | 3 1/8 | 3 | 2 5/8 | 25.36 |
| 1000 mL | 4 1/4 | 4 | 3 1/2 | 33.81 |
Volume measures are an approximation of weight, and always will be. If a recipe matters — bread, pastry, macarons — weigh it. A cheap digital scale removes every source of error on this page in one purchase.
Four cups, all of them real
The cup is the least standardised unit in common use. There is no international definition and four different volumes are in active circulation, so this page shows all of them at once rather than picking one and hoping.
| Standard | Millilitres | Relative to US customary |
|---|---|---|
| US customary | 236.588 | 1.000 |
| US legal (labelling) | 240 | 1.014 |
| Metric (AU, NZ) | 250 | 1.057 |
| Imperial (old UK) | 284.131 | 1.201 |
| Japanese | 200 | 0.845 |
Using an Australian cup in an American recipe adds nearly 6% to every wet ingredient. That is invisible in a soup and very visible in a cake batter.
The numbers you will actually look up
- 250 mL = 1.057 US cups = exactly 1 metric cup
- 240 mL = 1.014 US cups = exactly 1 US legal cup
- 200 mL = 0.845 US cups
- 500 mL = 2.11 US cups = 2 metric cups
- 1 litre = 4.23 US cups = 4 metric cups
- 125 mL = about half a US cup
- 15 mL = 1 metric tablespoon
Fluid ounces, and which one
A US fluid ounce is 29.5735 mL; an imperial fluid ounce is 28.4131 mL. The imperial one is smaller, which surprises people, but the imperial pint has twenty of them against the US pint's sixteen — so an imperial pint (568 mL) is a fifth bigger than a US pint (473 mL). Both figures appear in the results panel.
Millilitres and grams are only equal for water
One millilitre of pure water weighs one gram at 4 °C. That elegance is the whole point of the metric system, and it does not extend to anything else. 250 mL of honey weighs 354 g; 250 mL of vegetable oil weighs 227 g; 250 mL of flour weighs about 130 g. Pick an ingredient in the tool and it will give you the weight as well as the volume.
Measuring liquid accurately
Use a jug, on a level surface, read at eye level, and read the bottom of the meniscus — the curved surface a liquid forms against glass. Dry measuring cups are designed to be filled to the brim and levelled; liquid jugs have the graduation below the rim so you can carry them. Using one for the other is worth several percent on its own.
Questions
How many mL in a cup?
Four different answers, all correct in their own country: 236.588 mL (US customary), 240 mL (US legal, used on nutrition labels), 250 mL (Australia and New Zealand) and 284.131 mL (old British imperial). This page shows all four together.
Is 250 mL a cup?
It is exactly one metric cup, and about 1.06 US customary cups. Substituting a metric cup into a US recipe adds roughly 6% to every wet ingredient — enough to notice in a batter, not in a soup.
How many mL in a US fluid ounce?
29.5735 mL. The imperial fluid ounce is 28.4131 mL, so a "16 oz" US pint (473 mL) is smaller than a 20 oz imperial pint (568 mL).
Do I need to pick an ingredient?
Only if you want the weight. Volume-to-volume conversion is pure arithmetic; adding an ingredient lets the page also tell you what that volume weighs.