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Cron every 15 minutes

The cron expression for every 15 minutes is */15 * * * *, running on the quarter hour. Variants for business hours and weekdays, plus the GitHub Actions and AWS forms.

Cron expression
*/15 * * * *
See the next run times

The expression

*/15 * * * *

Runs at minute 0, 15, 30 and 45 of every hour, every day: 4 times an hour, 96 times a day.

Field Value Meaning
Minute */15 every 15th minute, starting at 0
Hour * every hour
Day of month * every day
Month * every month
Day of week * every day of the week

*/15 expands to 0,15,30,45, so the two forms are interchangeable; the explicit list is sometimes clearer to readers who don't know step syntax. Runs land on the quarter hour (10:00, 10:15, 10:30, 10:45), not 15 minutes after the job was added.

Variants

Schedule Expression
Every 15 minutes, offset by 7 (10:07, 10:22…) 7-59/15 * * * *
Every 15 minutes from 9:00 to 17:45 */15 9-17 * * *
Every 15 minutes, weekdays only */15 * * * 1-5
Every 15 minutes, 9 to 5 on weekdays */15 9-17 * * 1-5
Every 10 minutes */10 * * * *
Every 30 minutes */30 * * * *
Every hour 0 * * * *

To stop at exactly 17:00 instead of 17:45, use */15 9-16 * * 1-5 plus a second line 0 17 * * 1-5.

Where to write it

  • crontab (Linux, macOS): */15 * * * * /usr/local/bin/fetch.sh in crontab -e. Times are in the server's time zone; set CRON_TZ= in the crontab where supported.
  • GitHub Actions: on: schedule: - cron: '*/15 * * * *'. Always UTC; the minimum interval is 5 minutes. Runs at :00 are the most crowded and the most likely to start late, so 7-59/15 is a kinder choice.
  • Kubernetes CronJob: schedule: "*/15 * * * *", with timeZone: (for example "America/Chicago") when the hour or weekday fields matter.
  • AWS EventBridge: six fields, ? in one of the day fields: cron(0/15 * * * ? *). Weekdays only: cron(0/15 * ? * MON-FRI *); EventBridge numbers days 1-7 from Sunday, so names are safer. Or rate(15 minutes), which counts from rule creation.

Common mistakes

  • 15 * * * * is once an hour, at quarter past. The slash makes it a step.
  • */15 9-17 runs until 17:45, because the hour range includes 17.
  • Weekdays in UTC. On a UTC scheduler, 1-5 means Monday to Friday in UTC, which shifts the edges of the week by your offset.
  • Unlocked long runs. A job that sometimes needs 20 minutes will overlap the next one; use flock -n.

Paste any expression into the Cron Expression Parser to see it in words and its next run times.