Cron expression: every day at 05:00

Q: What is the cron expression to run a job every day at 05:00?

0 5 * * * — Runs once a day at 05:00 (5:00 AM) server time.

0 5 * * *

Runs once a day at 05:00 (5:00 AM) server time.

What each field means

Field	Value	Meaning
minute	`0`	minute 0
hour	`5`	hour 5
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 05:00
Friday 2 Jan 05:00
Saturday 3 Jan 05:00
Sunday 4 Jan 05:00
Monday 5 Jan 05:00
Tuesday 6 Jan 05:00

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.

Five in the morning is where jobs go that must be finished before Europe wakes up. There is roughly two hours of margin before the earliest arrivals, which is enough for a retry if the first attempt fails but not enough for a human to intervene. Suitable for a pipeline whose output the working day depends on, provided it can recover on its own.

Assuming the server runs UTC, a job firing at this hour lands on the middle of the working day in Mumbai, Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney; the middle of the night in New York, London, Berlin. 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	00:00
London	05:00
Berlin	06:00
Mumbai	10:30
Singapore	13:00
Tokyo	14:00
Sydney	16:00

The same schedule elsewhere

# crontab
0 5 * * * /usr/local/bin/my-job >> /var/log/my-job.log 2>&1

# GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/job.yml) — always UTC
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 5 * * *'

# Kubernetes CronJob
spec:
  schedule: "0 5 * * *"

# AWS EventBridge — six fields, and ? in one of the day fields
cron(0 5 * * ? *)

Frequently asked questions

What is the cron expression to run a job every day at 05:00?

0 5 * * * — Runs once a day at 05:00 (5:00 AM) 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 →