mL to Tablespoons Converter

A US tablespoon is 14.79 mL, a metric one 15 — and an Australian one is 20, which is four teaspoons, not three.

Conversion table

Volume	In tablespoons
1	0.067628 tbsp
2	0.13526 tbsp
3	0.20288 tbsp
4	0.27051 tbsp
5	0.33814 tbsp
10	0.67628 tbsp
15	1.0144 tbsp
20	1.3526 tbsp
25	1.6907 tbsp
30	2.0288 tbsp
40	2.7051 tbsp
50	3.3814 tbsp
60	4.0577 tbsp
70	4.734 tbsp
75	5.0721 tbsp

🌏 The three tablespoons

US tablespoon14.79 mL
Metric (UK, CA, NZ)15 mL
Australian20 mL
1 tbsp3 tsp (4 in Australia)

Measuring by spoon reliably

US and metric tablespoons differ by 1.4% — swap them freely. The Australian 20 mL spoon is 35% larger and does not swap.
For dry ingredients, level the spoon with a straight edge. A heaped tablespoon of flour can hold twice a level one.
Four tablespoons make a quarter cup, which is often easier to measure than the cup fraction itself.
Sticky ingredients like honey come out cleanly if the spoon is oiled or wetted first.

Three tablespoons, two of them near-identical

The US tablespoon is defined as half a US fluid ounce, 14.7868 millilitres, and equals three US teaspoons. The metric tablespoon used in Britain, Canada and New Zealand is a round 15 millilitres, so it is 1.4% larger — a difference no recipe will ever notice. Australia is the outlier: its tablespoon holds 20 millilitres and therefore contains four teaspoons rather than three. That change of ratio, not just of size, is what makes Australian recipes genuinely incompatible with everyone else's spoons.

Why the Australian spoon matters

A 35% difference is invisible in olive oil and decisive in leavening. Three tablespoons of baking powder measured Australian-style is 60 millilitres where the author intended 44, enough to make a cake rise fast and collapse, and to leave a metallic taste. The same applies to salt, bicarbonate of soda, yeast and strong spices. The safe habit with any Australian recipe is to read the tablespoon as four teaspoons and, for anything chemical, to measure in teaspoons instead — teaspoons are 5 mL in Australia too, so they cross borders without trouble.

What a tablespoon weighs

Water: 15 g. This is the only ingredient where millilitres and grams coincide.
Olive oil: about 13.5 g, and roughly 119 kilocalories.
Butter: about 14 g; American sticks are marked in tablespoons for this reason.
Granulated sugar: about 12.5 g level.
Plain flour: 8–9 g level, but up to 15 g heaped — the widest spread of any common ingredient.
Salt: about 18 g for fine table salt, but only 10–14 g for flaky sea salt, which is why salt is the worst thing to measure by volume.

Spoon equivalents worth memorising

1 tbsp = 3 tsp = 14.79 mL = ½ fl oz.
2 tbsp = ⅛ cup = 29.6 mL.
4 tbsp = ¼ cup = 59 mL.
8 tbsp = ½ cup = 118 mL.
16 tbsp = 1 cup = 236.6 mL.
An Australian tablespoon of 20 mL is 4 teaspoons, so 3 Australian tbsp = 4 US tbsp.

Worked examples

Spoons across borders

45 mL of oil

45 ÷ 14.7868 = 3.04 US tablespoons
With a 15 mL metric spoon: exactly 3
With an Australian 20 mL spoon: 2.25

45 mL = 3 tablespoons

An Australian recipe calling for 2 tbsp

2 × 20 = 40 mL
40 ÷ 14.7868 = 2.7 US tablespoons
So use 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons

2 Australian tbsp = 2 tbsp + 2 tsp

Frequently Asked Questions

How many mL in a tablespoon?

14.7868 mL for the US tablespoon, 15 mL for the metric one used in Britain, Canada and New Zealand, and 20 mL in Australia. The first two are interchangeable in practice; the Australian one is not.

Is 15 mL one tablespoon?

Yes for a metric tablespoon, and near enough for an American one, which is 14.79 mL. The 1.4% gap between them is smaller than the error of levelling a spoon by eye, so no recipe will suffer from treating them as the same.

Why is the Australian tablespoon different?

Australia standardised on 20 mL when it metricated in the 1970s, making its tablespoon four teaspoons instead of three. The teaspoon stayed at 5 mL, so only the larger spoon differs — which is why Australian recipes are best read in teaspoons when precision matters.

How many teaspoons in a tablespoon?

Three everywhere except Australia, where it is four. That ratio is more useful than the millilitre figure, because it lets you measure a tablespoon accurately with a teaspoon when the larger spoon is missing or the wrong size.

How many tablespoons in a quarter cup?

Four, which is 59 mL. The full ladder is 16 tablespoons to a cup, so 8 make a half and 4 a quarter. A third of a cup is the awkward one: 5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon.

Should I level a tablespoon or heap it?

Level, unless the recipe says otherwise. A heaped tablespoon of flour holds nearly twice a level one, which is why professional recipes either say level explicitly or give the weight instead.