Cups to Tablespoons Converter

Convert cups to tablespoons — 16 per cup, unless your recipe is Australian, where the tablespoon holds four teaspoons instead of three.

Conversion table

Cups	In Tablespoons
0.5	8 tbsp
1	16 tbsp
1.5	24 tbsp
2	32 tbsp
2.5	40 tbsp
3	48 tbsp
4	64 tbsp
5	80 tbsp
6	96 tbsp
7	112 tbsp
8	128 tbsp
9	144 tbsp
10	160 tbsp
12	192 tbsp
15	240 tbsp

📊 Cup Fractions in Tablespoons

1 cup16 tbsp
¾ cup12 tbsp
⅔ cup10 tbsp + 2 tsp
½ cup8 tbsp
⅓ cup5 tbsp + 1 tsp
¼ cup4 tbsp

The Thirds Problem, and the Australian Spoon

A third of a cup is not a whole number of tablespoons. It is 5⅓, which recipes write as '5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon'.
An Australian tablespoon is 20 mL — four teaspoons, not three. A recipe from Australia asking for 4 tbsp of butter wants 33% more than a US one.
The UK, Canada and New Zealand all use the 15 mL tablespoon, same as the US. Australia is the outlier.
Cutlery is not a measure. A soup spoon from the drawer holds anywhere from 7 to 14 mL, so measuring spoons matter more here than almost anywhere else in the kitchen.

Sixteen Tablespoons to a Cup

The US customary cup is 236.588 millilitres and the US tablespoon is 14.787 millilitres, which divides cleanly into sixteen. That tidy number is not an accident: the whole US kitchen system is built on repeated halving. A cup is half a pint, half a cup is eight tablespoons, a quarter cup is four, and an eighth of a cup is the two tablespoons that measuring sets label as one fluid ounce. Every step is a division by two, which is why measuring spoon sets come in halves and quarters rather than tenths, and why the numbers stay whole all the way down until you ask for a third.

Why Thirds Break the Pattern

Sixteen divides by two, four and eight without a remainder, but not by three. A third of a cup is 5.333 tablespoons, and a two-thirds is 10.667. Recipes handle this by dropping down a level: since one tablespoon is three teaspoons, the leftover third of a tablespoon becomes exactly one teaspoon. So a third of a cup is written as 5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon, and two thirds as 10 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons. Those are exact, not approximations, and they are the reason a well-written recipe never asks you to measure a fraction of a spoon.

The Tablespoon That Is Not 15 mL

Australia standardised its tablespoon at 20 mL — four teaspoons — when it went metric in the 1970s. Every other English-speaking country uses 15 mL.
That makes an Australian tablespoon 33% larger. Four of them is 80 mL against the 60 mL an American recipe intends.
The Australian cup is also different: 250 mL, not 236.6 mL. So an Australian cup is 12.5 of their tablespoons, not 16.
Australian teaspoons are 5 mL, the same as everywhere else. Only the tablespoon differs, which is what makes the mistake so easy to miss.
In baking, 20 mL of baking powder where 15 mL was meant is enough to leave a metallic taste and a collapsed crumb.
If a recipe comes from an Australian site and lists tablespoons of a raising agent or salt, convert it before you trust it.

Scaling a Recipe Without a Cup Measure

Doubling: 1 cup becomes 32 tablespoons, which is faster to count in cups. Scaling up, switch to cups; scaling down, switch to spoons.
Halving a third of a cup gives 2 tbsp + 2 tsp — a case where thinking in tablespoons is the only way to get it exact.
Two tablespoons make one fluid ounce, which is the unit most liquid measuring jugs are marked in.
A stick of US butter is 8 tablespoons, half a cup, and the wrapper is printed with tablespoon marks so you never need a measure.
For dry ingredients, tablespoons are volume too: 16 tbsp of flour is a cup of flour, roughly 120 g, with the same packing problem.
When a recipe gives both cups and grams, use the grams. Spoon counts are a fallback for when a scale is not available.

Worked Examples

Including the awkward fractions

A third of a cup, exactly

⅓ × 16 = 5.333 tablespoons
The 0.333 of a tablespoon is one third of 3 teaspoons = 1 teaspoon
So it reads: 5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon

⅓ cup = 5 tbsp + 1 tsp

An Australian recipe asking for ½ cup

Australian cup = 250 mL, Australian tablespoon = 20 mL
½ Australian cup = 125 mL = 6.25 Australian tablespoons
In US tablespoons of 14.787 mL, that same 125 mL is 8.5 tbsp

Same half cup, different spoon counts

Frequently Asked Questions

How many tablespoons are in a cup?

16 tablespoons in a US cup. Half a cup is 8, a quarter cup is 4, and an eighth of a cup is 2 tablespoons — which is also one fluid ounce.

How many tablespoons in a third of a cup?

5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon. A third of 16 is 5.333, and since a tablespoon is 3 teaspoons, the leftover third of a spoon is exactly one teaspoon. That is why recipes write it that way rather than as a decimal.

Is an Australian tablespoon the same as an American one?

No. The Australian tablespoon is 20 mL — four teaspoons — while the US, UK, Canadian and New Zealand tablespoon is 15 mL, or three teaspoons. That is a 33% difference, and it is the single most common conversion mistake between English-language recipes.

How many teaspoons are in a cup?

48 teaspoons, since each of the 16 tablespoons holds 3 teaspoons. Working in teaspoons is useful when halving small quantities, because it avoids fractions of a spoon.

How many tablespoons in two thirds of a cup?

10 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons. Two thirds of 16 is 10.667, and 0.667 of a tablespoon is 2 teaspoons exactly.

Can I use a normal spoon from the drawer?

Not reliably. Table cutlery ranges from about 7 to 14 mL for a soup spoon, so it can be half of a measuring tablespoon. For baking, where raising agents and salt are dosed in spoons, that error is enough to ruin the result.