1700 Military Time (5:00 PM)
1700 military time is 5:00 PM on the 12-hour clock. It is spoken as “seventeen hundred” — often with “hours” added: “seventeen hundred hours”.
1700 is the quitting-time of the 24-hour clock. The civilian “nine to five” maps to 0900–1700, most government offices and many military duty days end at or near it, and a large share of the paperwork that mentions it is really about deadlines: reports due, offices closing, passes starting. It converts to 5:00 PM — and unlike a casual “end of day”, it is precise to the minute.
Military
1700
no colon, always four digits
12-hour clock
5:00 PM
AM = morning, PM = afternoon/evening
Spoken as
“seventeen hundred”
often followed by “hours”
Conversions run entirely in your browser using your device’s clock and time zone — nothing you type is sent to a server.
Worked example: “submit NLT 1700”
Military and government tasking loves the phrase NLT 1700 — “no later than 1700”. To know what that means for your afternoon:
- Hour digits 17 are 13 or greater → PM.
- 17 − 12 = 5, minutes stay 00 → the cutoff is 5:00 PM.
- NLT means at-or-before, so 1659 meets the deadline and 1701 misses it.
Compare that to the civilian “by COB” (close of business) or “by EOD” (end of day), which different offices interpret as anywhere from 5:00 PM to midnight. Writing 1700 is popular in operational settings precisely because it removes that argument: the deadline is a clock reading, not a convention. If you are the one setting the deadline, “NLT 1700 local” is about as unambiguous as English gets.
How to say 1700 out loud
On the hour, so it takes the “hundred” form: “seventeen hundred”, or “seventeen hundred hours” in full. Off-hour variants around it follow the minutes rule — 1730 is “seventeen thirty”, and 1705 is “seventeen zero five”, with the zero voiced. A common beginner mistake is transplanting civilian phrasing and saying “five hundred PM”; the whole point of the 24-hour form is that “seventeen hundred” needs no AM or PM attached.
Times near 1700
| Military | 12-hour clock | Spoken as |
|---|---|---|
| 1630 | 4:30 PM | sixteen thirty |
| 1640 | 4:40 PM | sixteen forty |
| 1650 | 4:50 PM | sixteen fifty |
| 1700 | 5:00 PM | seventeen hundred |
| 1710 | 5:10 PM | seventeen ten |
| 1720 | 5:20 PM | seventeen twenty |
| 1730 | 5:30 PM | seventeen thirty |
Reading the 1600s: the digits stop rhyming with the clock
The table above is worth a second look because the 16xx–17xx block is where reverse-reading errors cluster. 1650 is not “16:50 PM” or ten-to-five — subtract 12 and it is 4:50 PM, ten minutes before 1700. People who convert by vaguely remembering “17 is 5” often stumble on 1645 or 1715 because the hour digit changes mid-thought. The reliable habit is mechanical: split hour and minutes first, convert the hour alone, reattach the minutes untouched. Ten seconds of drill with the rows above builds the reflex.
Related lookups
- Convert any time both directions with the military time converter, or scan the full printable military time chart.
- 1500 military time (3:00 PM) — the mid-afternoon anchor two hours earlier
- 1800 military time (6:00 PM) — one hour later, the dinner hour