Cron expression `0 30 9 ? * 2#3` runs at 09:30, on the third Tuesday of the month

What this cron means, field by field

Each field of 0 30 9 ? * 2#3 controls one dimension of the schedule. Hover over any value in the editor above to see its tooltip; the table below summarises the same information.

Field	Value	Means	Range / hint
second	`0`	at second 0	(see scheduler docs)
minute	`30`	at minute 30	0-59. The minute(s) of the hour the job will fire.
hour	`9`	at hour 9	0-23. The hour(s) of the day the job will fire (0 = midnight, 23 = 11 PM).
day of month	`?`	no specific value (Quartz/AWS only)	1-31. The day(s) of the month. Use * if you want every day.
month	`*`	every value (wildcard)	1-12 or JAN-DEC. The month(s). Use * for every month.
day of week	`2#3`	at day of week 2#3	0-7 or SUN-SAT (0 and 7 both mean Sunday). Use * for every day of the week.

Next 5 runs

Shown in UTC. Change the timezone in the editor.

Next runs · UTC

Tue 20 Oct · 09:30in 31d 2h
Tue 17 Nov · 09:30
Tue 15 Dec · 09:30
Tue 19 Jan · 09:30
Tue 16 Feb · 09:30

Where else this cron could be used

The same expression 0 30 9 ? * 2#3 works in:

Standard Unix crontab (5-field syntax).
AWS EventBridge / Lambda Scheduled (with a 6th field for year, often *).
Vercel cron jobs (declared in vercel.json).
Quartz Scheduler and node-cron, robfig/cron and similar libraries.

Examples

0 18 * * *
Every day at 18:00
0 */5 * * *
Every 5 hours
0 18 ? * 1-5
Weekdays at 18:00
0 0 1 * ?
Once a month, on the 1st at midnight
0 0 ? * 0
Every Sunday at midnight

Cheatsheet

Full cheatsheet

Field	Req.	Range	Wildcards
second	no	0-59	, - * /
minute	yes	0-59	, - * /
hour	yes	0-23	, - * /
day of month	yes	1-31	, - * / ? L W
month	yes	1-12 or JAN-DEC	, - * /
day of week	yes	0-6 or names; some dialects use 0-7 or 1-7 — see Dialects	, - * / ? L #
year	no	Dialect-specific; not present in standard cron	, - * /

Frequently asked questions

What does the cron expression `0 30 9 ? * 2#3` mean?

at 09:30, on the third Tuesday of the month.

When does `0 30 9 ? * 2#3` run next?

The next runs (UTC): 2026-10-20 09:30; 2026-11-17 09:30; 2026-12-15 09:30; 2027-01-19 09:30; 2027-02-16 09:30.

Is `0 30 9 ? * 2#3` a valid cron expression?

Yes - CronTool's parser accepts this expression and the calendar projects future runs successfully.

What this cron means, field by field

Next 5 runs

Where else this cron could be used

Frequently asked questions

Stop pasting `0 30 9 ? * 2#3` into a host you also have to babysit.