Cron expression: every day at 21:00

Q: What is the cron expression to run a job every day at 21:00?

0 21 * * * — Runs once a day at 21:00 (9:00 PM) server time.

0 21 * * *

Runs once a day at 21:00 (9:00 PM) server time.

What each field means

Field	Value	Meaning
minute	`0`	minute 0
hour	`21`	hour 21
day of month	`*`	every day of month
month	`*`	every month
day of week	`*`	every day of week

Next runs

Starting from 1 January 2026, 00:00 UTC:

Thursday 1 Jan 21:00
Friday 2 Jan 21:00
Saturday 3 Jan 21:00
Sunday 4 Jan 21:00
Monday 5 Jan 21:00
Tuesday 6 Jan 21:00

Things to watch

Remember this is the server's local time zone, not the user's. Run the server in UTC and convert for display if the exact wall-clock time matters to people.

Nine in the evening is past the European peak and still the American afternoon. Load is falling in one hemisphere and steady in the other, which makes it a reasonable compromise for a system with users on both.

Assuming the server runs UTC, a job firing at this hour lands on the middle of the working day in New York; outside working hours but waking or winding down in London, Sydney; the middle of the night in Berlin, Mumbai, Singapore, Tokyo. That matters less for the machine than for the people: whoever is on call when this breaks is determined by this row, not by the schedule.

If the server runs UTC, this is
New York	16:00
London	21:00
Berlin	22:00
Mumbai	02:30 (next day)
Singapore	05:00 (next day)
Tokyo	06:00 (next day)
Sydney	08:00 (next day)

The same schedule elsewhere

# crontab
0 21 * * * /usr/local/bin/my-job >> /var/log/my-job.log 2>&1

# GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/job.yml) — always UTC
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 21 * * *'

# Kubernetes CronJob
spec:
  schedule: "0 21 * * *"

# AWS EventBridge — six fields, and ? in one of the day fields
cron(0 21 * * ? *)

Frequently asked questions

What is the cron expression to run a job every day at 21:00?

0 21 * * * — Runs once a day at 21:00 (9:00 PM) server time.

Which time zone does cron use?

The server's local time zone, unless the scheduler says otherwise. GitHub Actions always uses UTC. Kubernetes CronJobs use UTC unless you set spec.timeZone. Running servers in UTC and converting only for display avoids an entire class of daylight-saving bugs.

What happens if the previous run is still going?

Standard cron starts a new one regardless, so long-running jobs can pile up. Wrap the command in flock -n /var/lock/my-job.lock, or set concurrencyPolicy: Forbid on a Kubernetes CronJob.

Why did my cron job not run at all?

The three usual causes: the script is not executable, the command relies on a PATH or environment variable that cron does not set, or output went nowhere because no mail transport is configured. Redirect stdout and stderr to a log file and the reason usually becomes obvious.

Other schedules

Build a custom cron expression →