Cron every day at 11:59pm (59 23 * * *): next runs and syntax

What it is used for

Closing out the current day: snapshotting counters, rotating a log so it contains exactly one day.

Field by field

Field	Value	Matches
Minute	`59`	59
Hour	`23`	23
Day of month	`*`	every value
Month	`*`	every value
Day of week	`*`	every value

59 23 * * * /path/to/job

Next 10 run times

Computed when this page loaded (2026-11-11 02:24 UTC), assuming the scheduler runs in UTC.

#	UTC	Your local time
1	`Wed 2026-11-11 23:59`	-
2	`Thu 2026-11-12 23:59`	-
3	`Fri 2026-11-13 23:59`	-
4	`Sat 2026-11-14 23:59`	-
5	`Sun 2026-11-15 23:59`	-
6	`Mon 2026-11-16 23:59`	-
7	`Tue 2026-11-17 23:59`	-
8	`Wed 2026-11-18 23:59`	-
9	`Thu 2026-11-19 23:59`	-
10	`Fri 2026-11-20 23:59`	-

Things to watch with this schedule

A job started at 23:59 that takes longer than a minute finishes on the next day, so date-based file names or queries computed inside the job can point at the wrong day. Capture the date once at start-up, or run at 00:00 and process 'yesterday' instead.

Kubernetes CronJob

Kubernetes uses the same five fields. Set spec.timeZone (stable since Kubernetes 1.27), otherwise the schedule follows the time zone of kube-controller-manager.

apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
  name: every-day-at-11-59pm
spec:
  schedule: "59 23 * * *"
  timeZone: "Etc/UTC"
  concurrencyPolicy: Forbid
  startingDeadlineSeconds: 300
  jobTemplate:
    spec:
      template:
        spec:
          restartPolicy: OnFailure
          containers:
            - name: job
              image: debian:bookworm-slim
              command: ["/bin/sh", "-c", "/app/run-job.sh"]

GitHub Actions

Workflow schedules use five-field cron in UTC and run only from the default branch.

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '59 23 * * *'   # UTC

jobs:
  run:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: ./run-job.sh

systemd timer

The equivalent OnCalendar= value is *-*-* 23:59:00. Check it with systemd-analyze calendar '*-*-* 23:59:00', which prints the next elapse time. Persistent=true runs a missed job after downtime, which classic cron never does.

[Unit]
Description=Every day at 11:59pm

[Timer]
OnCalendar=*-*-* 23:59:00
Persistent=true

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

AWS EventBridge

EventBridge rules take six fields (minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week, year) in UTC; EventBridge Scheduler can use a time zone. One of day-of-month and day-of-week must be ?, and day-of-week runs 1-7 from Sunday, so names are used here.

cron(59 23 * * ? *)

Quartz Scheduler (Java)

Quartz adds a leading seconds field and needs ? in either day field; days of the week are 1 (SUN) to 7 (SAT).

0 59 23 * * ?

Spring's @Scheduled(cron = ...) also uses six fields, but numbers days of the week 0-7 with Sunday as 0 or 7, like Unix cron; the names shown above work in both.

Related schedules

Every day at 6pm 0 18 * * *
Twice a day 0 0,12 * * *
Every day at 5pm 0 17 * * *
Twice a day at 9am and 5pm 0 9,17 * * *
Every day at 9am 0 9 * * *
Every day at 8am 0 8 * * *
All cron schedules and the field reference
Build a crontab line from this schedule