One US cup equals 16 tablespoons, so multiply cups by 16: 3/4 cup is 12 tablespoons and 1/3 cup is 5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon. A 250 ml metric cup holds 16.67 tablespoons of 15 ml, and in Australia, where a tablespoon is 20 ml, one cup is 12.5 tablespoons.
Recipes that call for a fraction of a cup often land on an awkward number when you only have spoons clean, or when you are halving a recipe and 1/3 cup becomes 1/6. This converter turns a cup amount into tablespoons, teaspoons and millilitres, and gives the nearest practical combination of level spoons, such as 2 tbsp + 2 tsp. Pick the cup the recipe was written for: American recipes use the 236.6 ml US cup, while British, Canadian and New Zealand books mostly use a 250 ml metric cup, and Australian recipes pair that cup with a 20 ml tablespoon. The figures are volumes only; they do not turn cups of flour or sugar into grams, which depends on the ingredient and how it is packed.
Type cups as a decimal: 0.5 for half, 0.333 for a third, 1.25 for one and a quarter.
Select US, metric or Australian to match where the recipe was written.
The headline is exact tablespoons; the spoon measure rounds to whole teaspoons for the kitchen.
Result Tablespoons: 16
Teaspoons: 48
Millilitres: 236.6
Nearest spoon measure: 16 tbsp
The standard US cup holds exactly 16 tablespoons, or 48 teaspoons, which is why cup sets skip straight from 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup.
Result Tablespoons: 5.33
Teaspoons: 16
Millilitres: 78.9
Nearest spoon measure: 5 tbsp + 1 tsp
A third of a cup is not a whole number of tablespoons; measure 5 tablespoons and add 1 teaspoon.
Result Tablespoons: 25
Teaspoons: 100
Millilitres: 500
Nearest spoon measure: 25 tbsp
Australia uses a 20 ml tablespoon, so two 250 ml cups come to 25 tablespoons rather than 33.
tbsp = cups × (cup volume ÷ tablespoon volume)
cupscup volumetablespoon volumeThe US cup is defined as 8 US fluid ounces and the tablespoon as half a fluid ounce, giving exactly 16 tablespoons per cup and 3 teaspoons per tablespoon. Metric systems define the cup and spoons in millilitres instead, so the ratio is 250 ÷ 15 = 16.67 or, with Australia's 20 ml tablespoon, 12.5. The spoon measure converts the volume to whole teaspoons and splits it into tablespoons plus the remainder.
Half a US cup is 8 tablespoons. Half a 250 ml metric cup is 8.33 tablespoons of 15 ml, close enough to 8 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon. In Australia it is 6.25 tablespoons of 20 ml.
Three quarters of a US cup is exactly 12 tablespoons, or 36 teaspoons. With a 250 ml metric cup it is 12.5 tablespoons.
Sixteen does not divide evenly by three, so 1/3 cup is 5 1/3 tablespoons. Since one tablespoon holds three teaspoons, the third of a tablespoon is exactly 1 teaspoon: measure 5 tablespoons and 1 teaspoon.
Nearly. Modern UK and metric recipes use 15 ml, while the US tablespoon is 14.79 ml. The 1.4% gap does not matter in cooking. Older British books used a larger imperial tablespoon of about 17.7 ml, which this converter does not cover.
A US cup holds 48 teaspoons. A 250 ml metric or Australian cup holds 50 teaspoons of 5 ml.
Not for the spoon count. A tablespoon is a volume, so a quarter cup of oil and a quarter cup of flour are both 4 US tablespoons. What changes is the weight, which needs an ingredient-specific conversion.
Using this tool in an assignment, article or report? Copy a citation, or a link for your website.
Tools Directory Editorial Team. (2026, October 14). Cups to Tablespoons. Tools Directory. Retrieved October 27, 2026, from https://tools.milunir.com/cooking/recipe-scaling-and-conversions/cups-to-tablespoons/
Tools Directory Editorial Team. “Cups to Tablespoons.” Tools Directory, 14 Oct. 2026, https://tools.milunir.com/cooking/recipe-scaling-and-conversions/cups-to-tablespoons/. Accessed 27 Oct. 2026.
Tools Directory Editorial Team. “Cups to Tablespoons.” Tools Directory. Last modified October 14, 2026. Accessed October 27, 2026. https://tools.milunir.com/cooking/recipe-scaling-and-conversions/cups-to-tablespoons/.
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