Cron for every 5 hours
Fires at 00:00, 05:00, 10:00, 15:00, and 20:00 — then only four hours later at midnight, because 5 does not divide 24 evenly.
0 */5 * * *
At minute 0 past every 5th hour
Interpreted in UTC · approximately 5 runs per day
Things to check
Gotcha
Step of 5 does not divide 24 hours evenly
"*/5" fires at 0, 5, 10 and 15, … and last at 20. Because 5 does not divide 24 evenly, the interval from 20 back around to 0 is 4, not 5. The schedule is not truly "every 5 hours".
Fix: Use a step that divides 24 evenly, or list the values explicitly.
Note
Interpreted in UTC
A cron expression has no timezone of its own — the scheduler's zone decides when it fires. These times are computed in UTC. The same expression on a host in another zone runs at a different moment.
Fix: Set the schedule timezone explicitly (TZ= or CRON_TZ= in crontab, `timeZone` in Kubernetes, or the scheduler's own setting). Vercel Cron Jobs always run in UTC.
Fields
- Minute
0 - At minute 0.
- Hour
*/5 - Every 5 hours.
- Day of month
* - Every day of the month.
- Month
* - Every month.
- Day of week
* - Every day of the week.
Next runs
- Wed, 2026-09-02, 20:00
- Thu, 2026-09-03, 00:00
- Thu, 2026-09-03, 05:00
- Thu, 2026-09-03, 10:00
- Thu, 2026-09-03, 15:00
- Thu, 2026-09-03, 20:00
- Fri, 2026-09-04, 00:00
- Fri, 2026-09-04, 05:00
Try a different expression or timezone
Times above are in UTC. Pick a timezone here to see this schedule in local time.
Call this from code or an agent
curl 'https://crontoenglish.com/api/v1/explain?expression=0%20*%2F5%20*%20*%20*'