Pints to Cups

About Pints and Cups

Pints (pt): Two US cups (473 mL), or in the UK an imperial pint of 568 mL (about 20% larger); pints date to medieval English measurement, with the modern US definition fixed by the 1707 wine gallon. Common uses: Beer and other beverages (a US pint of beer is 16 fl oz; a UK pint is 20 fl oz), ice cream containers, and some recipe measurements.

Cups (cup): The US cup is exactly 236.588 mL, or 8 US fluid ounces; the metric cup (used in Australia and some metric cookbooks) is 250 mL; the UK imperial cup is 284 mL. Common uses: American cooking and baking — the dominant volumetric unit for ingredient measurement in US recipes; mostly absent from professional and metric-country recipes which prefer weight.

How the conversion works

Volume conversions use US customary measure (the cup, fluid ounce, and gallon are US definitions, not imperial). 1 US cup = 236.588 mL, 1 US gallon = 3.785411784 L.

The exact relationship is cups = pints × 2, which the calculator at the top of this page applies in both directions. Type into either field and the other updates immediately.

When this conversion matters

Converting between pints and cups comes up wherever volume measurements move between systems — from one country's conventions to another's, from a scientific reference to a practical specification, or from one industry's working unit to another's. The calculator and reference table above cover the everyday range; for unusual values you can type any number into either field.