Volume Converter

Conversion method

Choose the definition that matches your measurement, then round the result to a useful precision.

mL = x × 236.5882365

10 cup = 2365.882365 mL.

US and imperial volumes are not the same

This is the most common source of ruined recipes. A US gallon is 3.785 liters while an imperial (UK) gallon is 4.546 liters — about 20% larger. The difference propagates through every subdivision: a US pint is 473 mL against an imperial pint's 568 mL, and a US fluid ounce is 29.57 mL against 28.41 mL.

Confusingly, the imperial fluid ounce is slightly smaller than the US one even though the imperial pint is larger, because an imperial pint contains 20 fluid ounces while a US pint contains 16. This converter uses US customary units throughout.

Cooking measures

US kitchen volumes relate to each other in simple ratios.

• 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons = 14.79 mL
• 1 fluid ounce = 2 tablespoons = 29.57 mL
• 1 cup = 8 fl oz = 16 tablespoons = 236.6 mL
• 1 pint = 2 cups = 473.2 mL
• 1 quart = 2 pints = 4 cups = 946.4 mL
• 1 gallon = 4 quarts = 16 cups = 3.785 L

Why weight beats volume for baking

Volume measures the space an ingredient occupies, which for anything compressible is unreliable. A cup of flour can weigh anywhere from 120 to 150 grams depending on whether it was scooped, spooned, or sifted — a swing of 25% that visibly changes a bread or cake.

This is why professional and published baking recipes increasingly give weights. A kitchen scale removes the ambiguity entirely and is faster in practice, since you can add ingredients to one bowl on a tare. Liquids are far less affected, so volume remains fine for water, milk, and oil.

Volume versus weight ounces

The word ounce refers to two different quantities, and recipes rarely disambiguate. A fluid ounce measures volume; an ounce measures weight. They coincide only for water, where one fluid ounce weighs almost exactly one ounce — the historical origin of the shared name.

For anything denser or lighter than water the two diverge. Eight fluid ounces of honey weighs about 12 ounces; eight fluid ounces of flour weighs about 4.5. When a recipe says ounces, liquids are usually fluid ounces and dry ingredients are usually weight, but if the result matters, checking is worthwhile.

Cups to millilitres

Scaling a recipe up or down is where fractions of a cup meet millilitres. One US cup is 236.6 mL; nutrition labels round it to 240.

Unit definitions and sources

US liquid and Imperial measures differ. US cups here are customary cups, not 240 mL nutrition-label or 250 mL metric cups. Dry measures are not interchangeable with liquid measures.

23 of the 41 definitions below were checked against the cited sources on 2026-09-20 (AI-assisted check).

Sources: BIPM: International System of Units; NIST: SP 811 Appendix B.8: conversion factors; BIPM: SI prefixes; NIST: Metric cup and spoon conventions

Precision of volume conversions

All 41 volume units convert through Liter (L). 41 have an exact defined relationship to the base unit and 0 are conventional or measured values. Results and the tables on this page come from the same engine, so a table value can be checked against the converter directly.

Standard display shows up to six decimal places, switching to scientific notation for very large or small values. Calculation uses JavaScript binary floating point independently of display rounding, so extra digits are not a claim about measurement accuracy. Each unit lists its own source; a citation records where the definition comes from, not an independent review. See Conversion methodology for the review and correction process.