Cron every 30 minutes

The cron expression for every 30 minutes is:

*/30 * * * *

Runs twice an hour, on the hour and at half past.

48 times a day

Standard 5-field cron

Monitor this schedule Open in translator Change it in the generator

Next 10 runs

For */30 * * * *, in the timezone you pick. Cron uses the server's timezone.

Times in UTC as of the last site update. They refresh when the page loads in a browser.

Timezone

#	Date and time	When
1	Oct 29, 2026, 22:30	Thursday
2	Oct 29, 2026, 23:00	Thursday
3	Oct 29, 2026, 23:30	Thursday
4	Oct 30, 2026, 00:00	Friday
5	Oct 30, 2026, 00:30	Friday
6	Oct 30, 2026, 01:00	Friday
7	Oct 30, 2026, 01:30	Friday
8	Oct 30, 2026, 02:00	Friday
9	Oct 30, 2026, 02:30	Friday
10	Oct 30, 2026, 03:00	Friday

How to read /30 * * *

*/30 in the minute field takes every thirtieth minute, starting at 0. It is the same as 0,30 * * * *.

Field	Value	Meaning	Allowed
Minute	*/30	At minutes 0 and 30	0-59
Hour	*	Every hour	0-23
Day of month	*	Every day of the month	1-31
Month	*	Every month	1-12 or jan-dec
Weekday	*	Every day of week	0-7 or sun-sat

Watch out for

30 * * * * (without the */) is a different schedule: once an hour, at half past.
To run at :15 and :45 instead, use 15,45 * * * *.

Often used for: Short syncs, cleanup jobs and reports that refresh twice an hour.

Use it in

crontab

*/30 * * * * /path/to/your-script.sh

Edit with crontab -e. Runs in the server's timezone.

Kubernetes CronJob

apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
  name: my-job
spec:
  schedule: "*/30 * * * *"
  timeZone: "Etc/UTC"
  jobTemplate:
    spec:
      template:
        spec:
          restartPolicy: OnFailure
          containers:
            - name: my-job
              image: busybox:1.36
              command: ["sh", "-c", "date"]

Without timeZone, the schedule follows the timezone of the kube-controller-manager.

GitHub Actions

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '*/30 * * * *'
      timezone: "Etc/UTC"
jobs:
  run:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: ./your-script.sh

Without timezone, GitHub runs schedules in UTC. It runs them at most every 5 minutes, and a run can start late when GitHub is busy.

All cron schedules

Cron does not tell you when a job stops

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