1 cup = 236.5882 millilitres. Cups, spoons, pints and litres are all measures of the same thing — volume — and this page converts between two of them. The factor is fixed by definition, not measured in a kitchen, so it is the same for every ingredient, every recipe and every brand of measuring cup. What follows is the full table for the amounts you actually cook with, worked examples from real recipes, and the mistakes that catch people out even when the maths is right.
The reason this conversion is worth a page of its own is that it sits at the junction of two measuring traditions. The US customary system grew out of old English measures, while the metric system was designed to be decimal — and recipes cross between them constantly now that cooks follow recipes from every country on the internet. Knowing that 1 cup is a fixed number of millilitres means you can follow any recipe, whatever system it was written in, with the tools you already own.
Conversion table
| Cups | Millilitres |
|---|---|
| ¼ cup | 59.1471 millilitres |
| ⅓ cup | 78.8627 millilitres |
| ½ cup | 118.2941 millilitres |
| ⅔ cup | 157.7255 millilitres |
| ¾ cup | 177.4412 millilitres |
| 1 cup | 236.5882 millilitres |
| 1.5 cups | 354.8824 millilitres |
| 2 cups | 473.1765 millilitres |
| 3 cups | 709.7647 millilitres |
| 4 cups | 946.3529 millilitres |
Read the table in either direction. Going from cups to millilitres, multiply by 236.5882; going back, divide by 236.5882 or multiply by 0.0042. The middle rows are the ones recipes use most — ⅔ cup is 157.7255 millilitres, and 1 cup is 236.5882 millilitres. If your amount is not in the table, multiply it by 236.5882 and you have the answer. For a quick check: 1 cup is 236.5882 millilitres, 2 cups are 473.1765 millilitres, and 10 cups are 2365.8824 millilitres.
Worked examples
Checking a measuring jug. Jugs are not always honest. Pour ½ cup of water into the jug — that should read 118.2941 millilitres on the millilitres scale. If it reads noticeably more or less, trust the cups: measuring cups and spoons are made to a standard, while cheap jugs are often printed a few percent out. A jug that is wrong by 5% will put 5% too much liquid in every cake, soup and sauce you make with it, which is enough to notice.
Working from a video recipe. The cook on screen measures ½ cup and your set only has a millilitre measure. That is 118.2941 millilitres — pause the video, count them out, and carry on. Video recipes are the worst for mixed units, because the cook never stops to convert for you. Keep this page open on your phone while you cook and the pause button becomes your conversion chart.
A recipe written in the other system. You find a homemade lemonade recipe from a metric cookbook that lists 354.8824 millilitres, but your measuring cups are marked in cups. That is 1.5 cups — a familiar measure again. This is the most common reason people look this conversion up mid-cook: one recipe, two measuring systems, and dinner in an hour. Convert the whole recipe to one system before you start, write the converted amounts on the page, and you will not have to do the arithmetic with wet hands.
How the conversion works
The US cup is defined as 236.5882 ml, and the millilitre is defined as 1 ml. Divide the first by the second and you get 236.5882 — that is the whole derivation, and it is why the conversion is exact rather than approximate. No kitchen experiment was needed to establish it; the units were defined this way, so the ratio follows from the definitions. That is also why the same factor appears in every reliable conversion chart: there is only one right answer, and every source that uses US customary units agrees on it.
The one thing to check is which cup your recipe means. This page uses the US customary cup throughout. A metric cup is 250 ml, an imperial cup is 284 ml, and older recipes sometimes use a 'cup' that means whatever cup the writer had in the cupboard. If a recipe from outside the US gives an amount that looks wrong after converting — a cake with far too much liquid, a soup that is far too thin — the cup is the first suspect. Convert the recipe to grams once, write the grams on the recipe card, and the question never comes up again.
Rounding deserves a note too. The exact factor is 236.5882 to four decimal places, and the full value runs further (236.59 ml divided by 1.00 ml). For everyday cooking, rounding to two or three significant figures is fine: a 1% rounding error is invisible in a soup and barely noticeable in a cake. But round only at the end. If you round the factor and then multiply by a large amount, the rounding error grows with the amount — so keep the full factor through the calculation and round the answer, not the factor.
Volume is not weight
A conversion between two volume units is the same for every ingredient, but a conversion between volume and weight is not — and confusing the two is the most common conversion mistake in cooking. A cup of all-purpose flour weighs about 120 g spooned and levelled (King Arthur Baking), a cup of granulated sugar about 198 g, a cup of butter about 227 g, a cup of milk about 244 g (USDA), and a cup of honey about 336 g. All of those weights are approximate, because they depend on how the ingredient is measured: flour is spooned and levelled, brown sugar is packed at about 213 g a cup, and honey is poured.
Flour weight is the most disputed conversion in baking. King Arthur Baking lists 120 g per cup spooned and levelled, while other sources quote 125 g, 130 g and up to 142 g for a scooped cup. We use the King Arthur spooned-and-levelled value as primary, and the gap is a warning: if you scoop flour instead of spooning and levelling it, you can add 20 g or more per cup, which is enough to make a cake dry. Granulated sugar carries a smaller dispute — King Arthur lists 198 g per cup and the USDA rounds it to 200 g, a difference of rounding rather than a real disagreement. When a recipe matters, verify with a kitchen scale: weigh the ingredient instead of measuring it by volume, and every dispute on this page disappears.
Common mistakes
The most common mistake is mixing up volume and weight: a fluid ounce is a volume, an ounce is a weight, and they are only the same number for water. A cup of flour and a cup of honey are the same volume and very different weights. The second mistake is the cup itself: a US cup is 236.59 ml, a metric cup is 250 ml, and an imperial cup is 284 ml, so a recipe that just says 'cup' without saying which cup can be off by a fifth before you start. The third mistake is the pint: a US pint is 473 ml and 16 fluid ounces, while an imperial pint is 568 ml and 20 fluid ounces — a big difference in a beer batter or a stock pot. The fourth is the tablespoon: a US tablespoon is 14.79 ml, but an Australian tablespoon is 20 ml, so an Australian recipe measured with US spoons is short by a quarter. The fifth mistake is rounding too early: converting each ingredient separately and rounding each one lets small errors add up, so convert once, at the end, and keep the full number until the final step. Check which system your recipe uses before you measure anything, and the rest is simple arithmetic.
Frequently asked questions
How many millilitres are in 1.5 cups?
354.8824 millilitres. Multiply 1.5 by 236.5882. Larger amounts like this are where a jug marked in millilitres earns its keep — counting them out in cups means many pourings and many chances to lose count.
What measuring tools do I need for cups and millilitres?
A set of dry measuring cups, a set of measuring spoons, and a liquid jug marked in both cups and millilitres will cover almost every recipe. A kitchen scale is the best single addition: it measures weight directly, which is more accurate than any volume measure, and it ends arguments about how a cup was filled. Check that your jug's markings are accurate by pouring a known amount — one cup of water should read 236.5882 millilitres on the millilitres scale.
Is the conversion from cups to millilitres exact?
Yes. Both units are defined volumes, so the factor 236.5882 is exact by definition, not an approximation measured in a kitchen. The only place approximation creeps in is rounding: if you round 236.5882 to a shorter number for mental arithmetic, the result is approximate, but the true conversion is exact. For baking, keep at least two decimal places; for soups and stocks, rounding to the nearest whole number is fine.
Does this conversion change for different ingredients?
No — volume is volume. One cup of water, milk, oil, honey or stock is always 236.5882 millilitres. What changes between ingredients is the weight: a cup of all-purpose flour weighs about 120 g, a cup of granulated sugar about 198 g and a cup of honey about 336 g, so a conversion to grams always depends on the ingredient. But a conversion between two volume units never does, which is why this page has one table for every ingredient.
What is the quickest way to measure 1 cup in millilitres?
Use a measuring jug marked in millilitres and fill it to the 236.5882 millilitres line, reading at eye level on a flat surface. Counting it out in cups one at a time is slower and easier to miscount. If you do not have a jug, a kitchen scale works for water-based liquids, since 1 ml of water weighs about 1 g — but that shortcut only holds for water-like liquids, not for oil or honey.