Hour function

This article describes the formula syntax and usage of the HOUR function in Microsoft Excel.

Description

Returns the hour of a time value. The hour is given as an integer, ranging from 0 (12:00 A.M.) to 23 (11:00 P.M.).

Syntax

HOUR(serial_number)

The HOUR function syntax has the following arguments:

• Serial_number    Required. The time that contains the hour you want to find. Times may be entered as text strings within quotation marks (for example, "6:45 PM"), as decimal numbers (for example, 0.78125, which represents 6:45 PM), or as results of other formulas or functions (for example, TIMEVALUE("6:45 PM")).

Remark

Time values are a portion of a date value and represented by a decimal number (for example, 12:00 PM is represented as 0.5 because it is half of a day).

Example

Copy the example data in the following table, and paste it in cell A1 of a new Excel worksheet. For formulas to show results, select them, press F2, and then press Enter. If you need to, you can adjust the column widths to see all the data.

Time
0.75
7/18/2011 7:45
4/21/2012
Formula	Description	Result
=HOUR(A2)	Returns 75% of 24 hours	18
=HOUR(A3)	Returns the hour portion of the date/time value.	7
=HOUR(A4)	A date with no time portion specified is considered 12:00 AM, or 0 hours.	0