Home โบ Apache Airflow โบ Every 15 minutes during business hours on weekdays
Apache Airflow cron expression: every 15 minutes during business hours on weekdays
To run a Apache Airflow job every 15 minutes during business hours on weekdays, use:
*/15 9-17 * * 1-5Every 15 minutes, during hours 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, on Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu and Fri.
Your week at a glance
Upcoming runs
| # | Local | UTC | From now |
|---|
Copy-ready code
Why use this schedule
Frequent checks during working hours only, which cuts the number of runs by about two thirds compared with all day, every day.
- Order-desk polling
- Intraday risk or trade reports
- Helpdesk escalation checks
First runs, as an example
Starting from 1 January 2027, evaluated in UTC:
| # | Date and time (UTC) |
|---|---|
| 1 | Fri, 01 Jan 2027, 09:00:00 |
| 2 | Fri, 01 Jan 2027, 09:15:00 |
| 3 | Fri, 01 Jan 2027, 09:30:00 |
| 4 | Fri, 01 Jan 2027, 09:45:00 |
| 5 | Fri, 01 Jan 2027, 10:00:00 |
| 6 | Fri, 01 Jan 2027, 10:15:00 |
Every 15 minutes during business hours on weekdays in every dialect
| System | Expression |
|---|---|
| Apache Airflow (this page) | */15 9-17 * * 1-5 |
| Quartz | 0 */15 9-17 ? * 2-6 |
| Spring | 0 */15 9-17 * * 1-5 |
| Crontab | */15 9-17 * * 1-5 |
| Kubernetes | */15 9-17 * * 1-5 |
| AWS EventBridge | */15 9-17 ? * 2-6 * |
| Jenkins | H/15 9-17 * * 1-5 |
| GitHub Actions | */15 9-17 * * 1-5 |
| node-cron | */15 9-17 * * 1-5 |
| Azure Functions | 0 */15 9-17 * * 1-5 |
| Google Cloud Scheduler | */15 9-17 * * 1-5 |
Need to translate a different expression? Use the cron converter.
Ready-to-use Apache Airflow config
Drop this into your project. The expression is the one above.
from datetime import datetime
from airflow import DAG
from airflow.operators.empty import EmptyOperator
with DAG(
dag_id="my_dag",
start_date=datetime(2026, 1, 1),
schedule="*/15 9-17 * * 1-5", # schedule_interval= before Airflow 2.4
catchup=False,
):
EmptyOperator(task_id="start")The Apache Airflow fields, in order: minute (0-59), hour (0-23), day-of-month (1-31), month (1-12), day-of-week (0-7, 0 and 7 = Sunday).
Things to watch out for in Apache Airflow
- Airflow parses cron with croniter, so */15 means :00, :15, :30 and :45. Presets such as @hourly and @daily are accepted too.
- Weekdays are 0-6 with Sunday as 0, or names such as MON-FRI.
- Airflow defaults to UTC. On a time-zone-aware DAG a cron schedule follows wall-clock time, so a daily 00:00 US/Eastern run moves between 04:00 and 05:00 UTC across daylight saving changes.
The common mistake with this schedule
The last run is 17:45, not 17:00, because the hour range is 9-17 and the minute step still fires inside hour 17.
Frequently asked questions
How do I run a Apache Airflow job every 15 minutes during business hours on weekdays?
Use */15 9-17 * * 1-5. Every 15 minutes, during hours 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, on Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu and Fri.
What is the every 15 minutes during business hours on weekdays cron expression in other systems?
Quartz: 0 */15 9-17 ? * 2-6; Spring: 0 */15 9-17 * * 1-5; Crontab: */15 9-17 * * 1-5. The table on this page lists every dialect.
Which time zone does Apache Airflow use for this schedule?
Airflow defaults to UTC. On a time-zone-aware DAG a cron schedule follows wall-clock time, so a daily 00:00 US/Eastern run moves between 04:00 and 05:00 UTC across daylight saving changes.