If you are mid-recipe and need this number fast: 1 cup is 0.5 pint. That is the answer, and the rest of this page is the table, the worked examples and the pitfalls for when you have more time. The conversion is exact, because both units are defined volumes in the same system — unlike a cup of flour, which changes weight with the ingredient, a cup is always the same volume, so the factor never varies.
Unlike a conversion between cups and grams, which depends on what is in the cup, this one has a single right answer. A cup is a defined volume and a pint is a defined volume, so the ratio between them is fixed by the definitions themselves. That makes it reliable in a way that ingredient conversions are not — and it means the table on this page is correct for every liquid, from water to cream to stock, without exception.
Conversion table
| Cups | Pints |
|---|---|
| ¼ cup | 0.125 pint |
| ⅓ cup | 0.1667 pint |
| ½ cup | 0.25 pint |
| ⅔ cup | 0.3333 pint |
| ¾ cup | 0.375 pint |
| 1 cup | 0.5 pint |
| 1.5 cups | 0.75 pint |
| 2 cups | 1 pint |
| 3 cups | 1.5 pints |
| 4 cups | 2 pints |
Read the table in either direction. Going from cups to pints, multiply by 0.5; going back, divide by 0.5 or multiply by 2. The middle rows are the ones recipes use most — ⅔ cup is 0.3333 pint, and 1 cup is 0.5 pint. If your amount is not in the table, multiply it by 0.5 and you have the answer. For a quick check: 1 cup is 0.5 pint, 2 cups are 1 pint, and 10 cups are 5 pints.
Worked examples
Measuring without the right cup. Your cup measure is in the dishwasher and you only have a pint measure. ½ cup is 0.25 pint, so count out 0.25 level pint and you are done. It is slower than using the right measure, but it is exact — this is a fixed unit conversion, not an estimate. The only thing to watch is levelling: a heaped pint is not a pint, and three heaped spoonfuls can add a whole extra cup to a delicate batter.
A dressing or sauce, made to taste. A mushroom risotto comes together in the bowl: ½ cup of oil, then the same again of vinegar, then seasoning. In pints that first pour is 0.25 pint. Dressings are forgiving — a little more or less oil will not ruin them — but knowing the conversion means you can scale the dressing up for a party without guessing, and you can write the scaled version down so it tastes the same next time.
A large pot of stock or soup. A stock pot takes 1.5 cups of water, which is 0.75 pint. At this size the jug is the only sensible tool — counting it out in cups would take all afternoon. Fill the jug to the 0.75 pint line, pour, and repeat if the pot needs more. And remember that stock reduces as it simmers, so measure the water going in, not the stock coming out.
How the conversion works
The US cup is defined as 236.5882 ml, and the pint is defined as 473.1765 ml. Divide the first by the second and you get 0.5 — 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 0.5 to four decimal places, and the full value runs further (236.59 ml divided by 473.18 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.
Batch cooking and large volumes
Large volumes are where the bigger units earn their keep. Counting out a gallon in cups means sixteen pourings and sixteen chances to lose count; one reading on a jug marked in the larger unit is faster and more accurate. For stock, jam, pickling and drinks, measure in the largest unit your jug offers, and convert once. Remember that large batches do not scale perfectly: a quadrupled jam needs longer to reach setting point, a quadrupled stock needs longer to reduce, and a quadrupled cake batter needs a bigger tin or two tins, not a deeper one. Seasoning and leavening scale by less than the volume, so add them in stages and taste as you go. Write the scaled amounts on the recipe card with the date, because a batch that worked deserves to be repeatable, and a batch that did not deserves a note about what to change. And label everything that goes in the freezer with the contents, the amount and the date — future you will be grateful.
Frequently asked questions
Why do recipes use cups instead of pints?
Mostly tradition and the tools cooks already own. American recipes were written for American measuring cups, and metric recipes for metric jugs, and neither is going to change. The units themselves are equally good for measuring volume — the difference is only what your kitchen is equipped for. Rather than buying a new set of measures for every recipe, convert once and cook with the tools you have.
How many pints are in 1 cup?
Exactly 0.5 pint. Multiply any number of cups by 0.5 to get pints — for example, ¾ cup is 0.375 pint. The conversion is exact because both units are defined volumes in the US customary system.
What is ⅔ cup in pints?
0.3333 pint. Multiply 0.6667 by 0.5: 0.6667 × 0.5 = 0.3333. This is a common recipe amount — a third of a cup of cream, a few spoonfuls of oil — so it is worth knowing it is a straight multiplication with no special case.
Is a US cup the same as a metric or imperial cup?
Not always, and this is the biggest trap in unit conversion. This page uses the US cup (236.5882 ml). A metric cup is 250 ml, an imperial cup is 284 ml, a US pint is 473 ml while an imperial pint is 568 ml, and an Australian tablespoon is 20 ml against the US 14.79 ml. If your recipe comes from outside the US, check which system it uses before converting — the factor on this page is correct for US measures only.
Can I use a kitchen scale instead of converting?
For liquids, often yes. A kitchen scale removes volume conversion entirely if the recipe gives grams, and for water-based liquids 1 ml weighs about 1 g, so millilitres and grams are nearly interchangeable. But the shortcut fails for fats and syrups: a cup of olive oil weighs about 216 g, not 237 g, and a cup of honey about 336 g. Use the scale when the recipe gives weights, and use this conversion when the recipe gives volumes.