Cron expression `45 5 18 OCT *` runs at 05:45, on day 18 of the month, only in October

What this cron means, field by field

Each field of 45 5 18 OCT * 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
minute	`45`	at minute 45	0-59. The minute(s) of the hour the job will fire.
hour	`5`	at hour 5	0-23. The hour(s) of the day the job will fire (0 = midnight, 23 = 11 PM).
day of month	`18`	at day of month 18	1-31. The day(s) of the month. Use * if you want every day.
month	`OCT`	at month OCT	1-12 or JAN-DEC. The month(s). Use * for every month.
day of week	`*`	every value (wildcard)	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

Sun 18 Oct · 05:45in 31d 19h
Mon 18 Oct · 05:45
Wed 18 Oct · 05:45
Thu 18 Oct · 05:45
Fri 18 Oct · 05:45

Similar cron expressions

Common variations and tweaks of 45 5 18 OCT *.

45 5 18 OCT 1-5At 05:45, on day 18 of the month, Monday through Friday, only in October

Where else this cron could be used

The same expression 45 5 18 OCT * 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

Cheatsheet

Full cheatsheet

Field	Req.	Range	Wildcards
minute	yes	0-59	, - * /
hour	yes	0-23	, - * /
day of month	yes	1-31	, - * /
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	, - * /

Frequently asked questions

What does the cron expression `45 5 18 OCT *` mean?

at 05:45, on day 18 of the month, only in October.

When does `45 5 18 OCT *` run next?

The next runs (UTC): 2026-10-18 05:45; 2027-10-18 05:45; 2028-10-18 05:45; 2029-10-18 05:45; 2030-10-18 05:45.

Is `45 5 18 OCT *` a valid cron expression?

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