If you are mid-recipe and need this number fast: 1 teaspoon is 0.3333 tablespoon. 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 teaspoon is always the same volume, so the factor never varies.
Most people meet this conversion when a recipe is written in one system and their tools are marked in the other. American recipes use teaspoons; metric recipes use tablespoons; and a cook who follows recipes from both ends up converting constantly. The good news is that volume-to-volume conversions are the simplest kind: the factor is exact, it never depends on the ingredient, and it works the same way for water, milk, oil, stock and every other liquid you cook with.
Conversion table
| Teaspoons | Tablespoons |
|---|---|
| 1 teaspoon | 0.3333 tablespoon |
| 2 teaspoons | 0.6667 tablespoon |
| 3 teaspoons | 1 tablespoon |
| 4 teaspoons | 1.3333 tablespoons |
| 6 teaspoons | 2 tablespoons |
| 9 teaspoons | 3 tablespoons |
| 12 teaspoons | 4 tablespoons |
| 24 teaspoons | 8 tablespoons |
| 48 teaspoons | 16 tablespoons |
Read the table in either direction. Going from teaspoons to tablespoons, multiply by 0.3333; going back, divide by 0.3333 or multiply by 3. The middle rows are the ones recipes use most — 4 teaspoons is 1.3333 tablespoons, and 9 teaspoons is 3 tablespoons. If your amount is not in the table, multiply it by 0.3333 and you have the answer. For a quick check: 1 teaspoon is 0.3333 tablespoon, 2 teaspoons are 0.6667 tablespoon, and 10 teaspoons are 3.3333 tablespoons.
Worked examples
Measuring without the right cup. Your teaspoon measure is in the dishwasher and you only have a tablespoon measure. 3 teaspoons is 1 tablespoon, so count out 1 level tablespoon 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 tablespoon is not a tablespoon, and three heaped spoonfuls can add a whole extra teaspoon to a delicate batter.
A dressing or sauce, made to taste. A fruit crumble comes together in the bowl: 3 teaspoons of oil, then the same again of vinegar, then seasoning. In tablespoons that first pour is 1 tablespoon. 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 12 teaspoons of water, which is 4 tablespoons. At this size the jug is the only sensible tool — counting it out in teaspoons would take all afternoon. Fill the jug to the 4 tablespoons 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 teaspoon is defined as 4.9289 ml, and the tablespoon is defined as 14.7868 ml. Divide the first by the second and you get 0.3333 — 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 teaspoon your recipe means. This page uses the US customary teaspoon 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 0.3333 to four decimal places, and the full value runs further (4.93 ml divided by 14.79 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
How many teaspoons are in 1 tablespoon?
3 teaspoons — the reverse of the main conversion. Divide the number of tablespoons by 0.3333, or multiply by 3. For example, 12 teaspoons is 4 tablespoons. Use the reverse direction when a metric recipe gives you tablespoons and your cups are in teaspoons.
How do I convert teaspoons to tablespoons without a calculator?
Multiply by 0.3333; for a quick mental estimate, round the factor to a friendly number and accept a small error. If the factor is larger than 1, break the amount into whole units and fractions — for example, convert 2 teaspoons and a half teaspoon separately and add them. If the factor is smaller than 1, remember that one tablespoon is 3 teaspoons, which is often easier to picture. For anything that matters, a phone calculator or the table on this page is faster and more accurate than mental maths mid-recipe.
How many teaspoons are in 0.6667 tablespoons?
Two teaspoons — because 0.6667 tablespoon divided by 0.3333 is 2. Doubling is the easiest check on any conversion: if doubling the input doubles the output, the factor is being applied correctly. Use it to sanity-check your maths whenever a converted amount looks surprising.
How many tablespoons are in 12 teaspoons?
4 tablespoons. Multiply 12 by 0.3333. Larger amounts like this are where a jug marked in tablespoons earns its keep — counting them out in teaspoons means many pourings and many chances to lose count.
What measuring tools do I need for teaspoons and tablespoons?
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 teaspoon of water should read 0.3333 tablespoon on the tablespoons scale.