Convert tablespoons to cups
Tablespoons to cups with a tablespoon-standard selector — the US, metric and 20 mL Australian spoons differ — plus teaspoons, mL and grams.
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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.
Australia's tablespoon is 20 mL — a third bigger than everyone else's.
Butter: 227 g per US cup (236.6 mL) — a density of 0.959 g/mL. One US stick is half a cup — 113.4 g, or exactly a quarter pound.
cups = tablespoons × (mL per tablespoon) ÷ (mL per cup) cups = 12.00 × 14.7868 ÷ 236.5882 cups = 0.750
| Tablespoons | Cups | Teaspoons | Millilitres |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 tbsp | 1/16 | 3.00 tsp | 14.8 mL |
| 2 tbsp | 1/8 | 6.00 tsp | 29.6 mL |
| 3 tbsp | 3/16 | 9.00 tsp | 44.4 mL |
| 4 tbsp | 1/4 | 12.00 tsp | 59.1 mL |
| 5 tbsp | 5/16 | 15.00 tsp | 73.9 mL |
| 6 tbsp | 3/8 | 18.00 tsp | 88.7 mL |
| 8 tbsp | 1/2 | 24.00 tsp | 118.3 mL |
| 10 tbsp | 5/8 | 30.00 tsp | 147.9 mL |
| 12 tbsp | 3/4 | 36.00 tsp | 177.4 mL |
| 14 tbsp | 7/8 | 42.00 tsp | 207.0 mL |
| 16 tbsp | 1 | 48.00 tsp | 236.6 mL |
| 20 tbsp | 1 1/4 | 60.00 tsp | 295.7 mL |
| 24 tbsp | 1 1/2 | 72.00 tsp | 354.9 mL |
| 32 tbsp | 2 | 96.00 tsp | 473.2 mL |
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.
Sixteen — unless you are in Australia
Sixteen US tablespoons make one US customary cup. That is the number nearly every American recipe assumes, and it is exact: a US tablespoon is half a fluid ounce, and a cup is eight fluid ounces.
The complication is that the tablespoon is not standardised either. Three are in use:
| Tablespoon | Volume | Teaspoons | Per US cup |
|---|---|---|---|
| US customary | 14.787 mL | 3 | 16 |
| Metric (UK, EU, Canada) | 15 mL | 3 | 15.8 |
| Australian | 20 mL | 4 | 11.8 |
The Australian spoon is the one that catches people, and it catches them twice: it is a third larger, and it holds four teaspoons rather than three. An Australian recipe calling for a tablespoon of baking powder means a third more raising agent than the same words in an American one.
The fraction ladder
- 1 cup = 16 tbsp
- 3/4 cup = 12 tbsp
- 2/3 cup = 10 tbsp + 2 tsp
- 1/2 cup = 8 tbsp
- 1/3 cup = 5 tbsp + 1 tsp
- 1/4 cup = 4 tbsp
- 1/8 cup = 2 tbsp = 1 fl oz
The thirds are the awkward ones, because 16 does not divide by 3. Five tablespoons plus a teaspoon is exactly a third of a cup — worth memorising, since it is the substitution most often fudged.
Measuring with spoons when you have no cup
For dry ingredients, fill the spoon heaped and level it with the back of a knife unless the recipe says "heaped" or "rounded". A levelled tablespoon of flour is about 8 g; a heaped one can be 15 g, so the instruction is not decoration.
For sticky ingredients — honey, syrup, peanut butter — oil the spoon first, or weigh instead. A tablespoon of honey that stays in the spoon is not a tablespoon of honey in the bowl.
Cutlery is not a measure
The tablespoon in your cutlery drawer holds anywhere from 7 to 14 mL depending on the pattern, and the teaspoon from 2.5 to 6 mL. Measuring spoons exist because eating spoons never standardised. For salt, raising agents and spices — the ingredients most often measured in spoons — that variance is the difference between seasoned and inedible.
Grams as well as cups
Pick an ingredient in the tool and each spoon measure also gets a weight, using the same density table as our grams-to-cups converter. A tablespoon of butter is 14 g, of granulated sugar 12.3 g, of cocoa 5 g and of honey 21 g — which is exactly why "a spoonful" is such an unreliable way to compare quantities across ingredients.
Questions
How many tablespoons in a cup?
16 US tablespoons make a US customary cup. But an Australian tablespoon is 20 mL, so only 12.5 of those fill the same cup — and a metric 15 mL spoon gives 15.8.
Is a tablespoon 15 mL or 14.79 mL?
Both are in use. The US customary tablespoon is 14.7868 mL (half a fluid ounce); the metric tablespoon used across Europe is a round 15 mL. The 1.4% difference never matters for one spoon and does matter across sixteen.
How many teaspoons in a tablespoon?
Three, everywhere except Australia, where the 20 mL tablespoon holds four 5 mL teaspoons. This is the most common Australian recipe trap.
How do I measure 3/4 cup with spoons?
12 US tablespoons. Half a cup is 8, a third is 5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon, and a quarter is 4 — the full ladder is in the table on this page.