How Many Tablespoons in a Cup?
There are 16 tablespoons in 1 US cup. That also makes a cup 48 teaspoons, 8 fluid ounces, or about 237 ml. The halves stay clean all the way down: ½ cup = 8 tbsp, ¼ cup = 4 tbsp, ⅛ cup = 2 tbsp.
Cup fractions to tablespoons
| Cups | Tablespoons | Teaspoons |
|---|---|---|
| ⅛ cup | 2 tbsp | 6 tsp |
| ¼ cup | 4 tbsp | 12 tsp |
| ⅓ cup | 5 tbsp + 1 tsp | 16 tsp |
| ⅜ cup | 6 tbsp | 18 tsp |
| ½ cup | 8 tbsp | 24 tsp |
| ⅝ cup | 10 tbsp | 30 tsp |
| ⅔ cup | 10 tbsp + 2 tsp | 32 tsp |
| ¾ cup | 12 tbsp | 36 tsp |
| ⅞ cup | 14 tbsp | 42 tsp |
| 1 cup | 16 tbsp | 48 tsp |
UK, metric, and Australian cups
These numbers are for US measures. A metric cup (250 ml) holds 16⅔ US tablespoons; an Australian tablespoon is 20 ml (4 teaspoons), so an Australian cup is 12½ of their tablespoons. If a recipe comes from outside the US, check which spoon it means — it changes the math more than most substitutions.
Why this matters for butter
A US butter stick is 8 tablespoons — exactly ½ cup — and the wrapper is printed with tablespoon marks, which makes it the easiest way to measure butter without a scale. See the butter stick converter.
Related: tablespoons to cups converter · teaspoons in a tablespoon
Data verified 2026-08-20 · Methodology