Cron twice a month (1st and 15th) (0 0 1,15 * *): next runs and syntax

What it is used for

Semi-monthly payroll, invoicing cycles and twice-monthly reports.

Field by field

Field	Value	Matches
Minute	`0`	0
Hour	`0`	0
Day of month	`1,15`	1, 15
Month	`*`	every value
Day of week	`*`	every value

0 0 1,15 * * /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	`Sun 2026-11-15 00:00`	-
2	`Tue 2026-12-01 00:00`	-
3	`Tue 2026-12-15 00:00`	-
4	`Fri 2027-01-01 00:00`	-
5	`Fri 2027-01-15 00:00`	-
6	`Mon 2027-02-01 00:00`	-
7	`Mon 2027-02-15 00:00`	-
8	`Mon 2027-03-01 00:00`	-
9	`Mon 2027-03-15 00:00`	-
10	`Thu 2027-04-01 00:00`	-

Things to watch with this schedule

The gaps are 14 days and then 13 to 16 days depending on the month length.

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: twice-a-month
spec:
  schedule: "0 0 1,15 * *"
  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. Runs at minute 0 are the most likely to be delayed or dropped when GitHub is busy; an odd minute such as 7 or 23 starts more reliably.

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 0 1,15 * *'   # UTC

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

systemd timer

The equivalent OnCalendar= value is *-*-01,15 00:00:00. Check it with systemd-analyze calendar '*-*-01,15 00:00:00', which prints the next elapse time. Persistent=true runs a missed job after downtime, which classic cron never does.

[Unit]
Description=Twice a month (1st and 15th)

[Timer]
OnCalendar=*-*-01,15 00:00:00
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(0 0 1,15 * ? *)

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 0 0 1,15 * ?

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 month on the 15th 0 0 15 * *
Last day of every month 0 0 28-31 * *
On the 31st of the month 0 0 31 * *
Every quarter 0 0 1 */3 *
Every 6 months 0 0 1 1,7 *
Every year on January 1st 0 0 1 1 *
All cron schedules and the field reference
Build a crontab line from this schedule