Teaspoons to Tablespoons Converter

Convert teaspoons to tablespoons — three to one everywhere except Australia, where it takes four.

Conversion table

Teaspoons	In Tablespoons
0.5	0.2 tbsp
1	0.3 tbsp
1.5	0.5 tbsp
2	0.7 tbsp
2.5	0.8 tbsp
3	1 tbsp
4	1.3 tbsp
5	1.7 tbsp
6	2 tbsp
7	2.3 tbsp
8	2.7 tbsp
9	3 tbsp
10	3.3 tbsp
12	4 tbsp
15	5 tbsp

📊 Spoons Worth Memorising

1 tsp5 mL
3 tsp1 tbsp (15 mL)
6 tsp2 tbsp = 1 fl oz
12 tsp4 tbsp = ¼ cup
48 tsp16 tbsp = 1 cup
1 Australian tbsp4 tsp (20 mL)

Where the Three-to-One Rule Fails

Australia is the exception: its tablespoon is 20 mL, so four teaspoons rather than three. Nowhere else does this.
A measuring teaspoon is exactly 5 mL. The teaspoon in your cutlery drawer holds between 2.5 and 7 mL — potentially half or 40% more.
Medicine is dosed in millilitres for exactly this reason. Using kitchen cutlery for a child's paracetamol is a documented cause of overdose.
Half a tablespoon is 1½ teaspoons, which is easier to measure accurately than trying to half-fill a tablespoon.

Three Teaspoons to One Tablespoon

The measuring teaspoon is defined as exactly 5 millilitres and the tablespoon as exactly 15, so the ratio is three to one by construction rather than by tradition. That definition is regulatory, not culinary: in the United States it comes from the FDA's food labelling rules, and most metric countries adopted the same round numbers when they standardised kitchen measures. The useful consequence is that the whole small end of a recipe scales in thirds — half a tablespoon is 1½ teaspoons, a third of a tablespoon is exactly one teaspoon, and two thirds is two.

Why Small Measures Are Where Recipes Break

A tablespoon of flour more or less will not change a cake, but a teaspoon of baking powder will. Raising agents, salt, and spices are all dosed at the teaspoon level, and they are the ingredients with the least tolerance for error. Baking soda in particular is unforgiving: a quarter-teaspoon too much leaves a soapy, metallic taste that no amount of sugar hides. This is why the small spoons are the ones worth owning as a proper set, and why halving a recipe is riskier than doubling it — you end up measuring eighths of a teaspoon, which no spoon in the set can do accurately.

Spoons and Medicine

A medical 'teaspoon' is defined as exactly 5 mL. Prescriptions and paediatric doses are written in millilitres precisely to avoid the spoon.
Household teaspoons range from roughly 2.5 to 7 mL. Using one can deliver half the intended dose or nearly one and a half times it.
Studies of parents dosing children's medicine with kitchen spoons find error rates above 50%, in both directions.
Always use the oral syringe or cup that comes with the bottle. If it is missing, ask a pharmacist for one rather than improvising.
A 'tablespoon' dose in older prescriptions means 15 mL, not the soup spoon in the drawer.
For anything measured in drops rather than spoons, a dropper delivers about 0.05 mL — twenty drops to the millilitre.

The Ingredients Where a Teaspoon Matters

Baking soda: a quarter-teaspoon too much leaves a metallic, soapy taste. It is the least forgiving ingredient in the pantry.
Baking powder: roughly one teaspoon per cup of flour. Too much makes the batter rise fast and collapse.
Salt in bread dough: it controls fermentation as well as flavour, so an extra teaspoon slows the rise noticeably.
Instant yeast is dosed by the teaspoon and loses potency with age — an old jar needs a different measure, not the same one.
Level the spoon with a straight edge. A heaped teaspoon of baking powder is closer to two.
Vanilla, spices and extracts are forgiving by comparison: an extra half teaspoon changes flavour, not chemistry.

Worked Examples

The conversions people actually need

Halving a recipe that calls for 1 tablespoon

1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons
Half of 3 teaspoons = 1.5 teaspoons
Measure it as one teaspoon plus one half-teaspoon, not by half-filling a tablespoon

½ tbsp = 1½ tsp

An Australian recipe asking for 2 tablespoons

Australian tablespoon = 20 mL = 4 teaspoons
2 Australian tablespoons = 40 mL = 8 teaspoons
In US tablespoons of 15 mL, that same 40 mL is 2.67 tbsp

2 AU tbsp = 8 tsp, not 6

Frequently Asked Questions

How many teaspoons are in a tablespoon?

Three, in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. The measuring teaspoon is exactly 5 mL and the tablespoon exactly 15 mL, so the ratio holds by definition.

Is it three teaspoons everywhere?

No. The Australian tablespoon is 20 mL, which is four teaspoons. Australia is the only country that standardised on that size, and it makes their tablespoon 33% larger than everyone else's.

How many milliliters is a teaspoon?

Exactly 5 mL for a measuring teaspoon. A teaspoon from a cutlery set is not standardised and holds anywhere from about 2.5 to 7 mL, which is why medicine is never dosed with one.

What is half a tablespoon?

1½ teaspoons. Measuring it as a teaspoon plus a half-teaspoon is far more accurate than trying to fill a tablespoon halfway, because the depth of a spoon does not scale linearly with volume.

Can I use a regular spoon from my kitchen drawer?

For seasoning, yes. For baking soda, baking powder, yeast, salt or any medicine, no. Cutlery teaspoons vary by a factor of nearly three between the smallest and the largest, and those are exactly the ingredients with no margin for error.

How many teaspoons in a cup?

48 teaspoons, since a cup is 16 tablespoons and each holds 3. That figure is useful when scaling a recipe down far enough that cups stop being practical.