Tool
Common Measurement Converter
Convert between cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, milliliters, and fluid ounces for any liquid or dry kitchen measure, instantly and completely free.
Common Measurement Converter
1.000
Cups
16.00
Tbsp
48.00
Tsp
236.6
Ml
8.00
Fl oz
Not every conversion in a recipe is about ingredient density — a lot of the time you just need to know how many tablespoons are in a third of a cup, or how many milliliters a European recipe's "200ml" measurement means in US cups. Those are pure volume-to-volume conversions, the same for any liquid or dry ingredient, unlike weight conversions which depend on what you're measuring.
This tool handles the common volume units — cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, fluid ounces, and milliliters — and converts between any of them using the fixed US customary conversion factors, no ingredient selection required.
It's the tool for the moment a recipe's units don't match your measuring tools at all — a US recipe in cups when you only have a set of European milliliter-marked jugs, or a recipe in tablespoons when you're trying to fill a 1/3-cup measure.
How the Common Measurement Converter works
All the volume units this tool handles convert through one fixed anchor: 1 US cup = 236.588 milliliters = 16 tablespoons = 48 teaspoons = 8 US fluid ounces. These are unit definitions, not measured or estimated figures — a tablespoon is always exactly 1/16 of a cup, regardless of what's in it.
Enter an amount in any one of the supported units and the tool converts it to cups internally first, then re-derives every other unit from that cup value using the fixed ratios above.
Because this is volume-to-volume conversion only (not weight), it deliberately does NOT need an ingredient selected — 1 cup of water and 1 cup of honey are still both exactly 1 cup, even though they weigh very different amounts. For a volume-to-weight conversion specific to an ingredient, use the Ingredient Converter instead.
Worked example: converting a European recipe's 200ml to US cups
200 ml ÷ 236.588 ml per cup ≈ 0.845 cups — close to, but not exactly, 7/8 cup (which would be 0.875 cups, or about 207 ml). Most US cooks round 200 ml to "just under 7/8 cup" or, more practically, use a scale and weigh 200g of water directly (water is the one substance where 1 ml and 1 gram are essentially interchangeable), sidestepping the awkward fraction entirely.
Going the other direction, a US recipe's 1/3 cup converts to 1/3 × 236.588 ≈ 78.9 ml — a number worth rounding to 79 ml if you're measuring with a European-style graduated jug rather than a US 1/3-cup measure.
Edge cases this tool handles correctly
- US vs. UK/Imperial fluid ounces
- This tool uses US customary units throughout — a US fluid ounce (29.57 ml) is NOT the same as a UK/Imperial fluid ounce (28.41 ml). A recipe using Imperial measurements will be very slightly off if treated as US units, though the difference is small enough to rarely matter outside of precision baking.
- Dry vs. liquid measuring cups
- US dry-measure cups and liquid-measure cups hold the same actual volume (236.588 ml) — the different cup styles (liquid cups with a pour spout, dry cups meant to be leveled off) exist for measuring convenience and accuracy, not because they represent different volumes.
- This tool doesn't know ingredient weight
- Because it converts volume to volume only, it can't tell you how many grams a converted amount weighs — that depends entirely on the ingredient's density, which is what the separate Ingredient Converter tool is for.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from the Ingredient Converter?
This tool converts between volume units only (cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, ml, fl oz) — it never touches weight. The Ingredient Converter converts a SPECIFIC ingredient between volume AND weight, using that ingredient's density.
How many tablespoons are in a cup?
16 tablespoons per US cup — a fixed unit definition, true for any liquid or dry substance, not something that varies by ingredient.
Is a US cup the same as a metric cup?
No — a US cup is 236.588 ml, while some countries (notably Australia) use a "metric cup" of exactly 250 ml. This tool uses the US customary cup; if your recipe explicitly says "metric cup," the 250 ml figure applies instead.
Why does this tool not need me to select an ingredient?
Because volume-to-volume conversion (cups to tablespoons, ml to fluid ounces, etc.) is the same fixed math regardless of what's being measured — a tablespoon is a tablespoon whether it holds water, oil, or flour.