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Apache Airflow cron

Apache Airflow cron expression: every day at 9:00 AM

To run a Apache Airflow job every day at 9:00 AM, use:

0 9 * * *

At 09:00 UTC.

Your week at a glance
fewer more runs

Upcoming runs

#LocalUTCFrom now

Copy-ready code

Why use this schedule

Start-of-business timing: the result is ready when people sit down at their desks. It is the usual choice for anything a human reads first thing in the morning.

First runs, as an example

Starting from 1 January 2027, evaluated in UTC:

#Date and time (UTC)
1Fri, 01 Jan 2027, 09:00:00
2Sat, 02 Jan 2027, 09:00:00
3Sun, 03 Jan 2027, 09:00:00
4Mon, 04 Jan 2027, 09:00:00
5Tue, 05 Jan 2027, 09:00:00
6Wed, 06 Jan 2027, 09:00:00

Every day at 9:00 AM in every dialect

SystemExpression
Apache Airflow (this page)0 9 * * *
Quartz0 0 9 * * ?
Spring0 0 9 * * *
Crontab0 9 * * *
Kubernetes0 9 * * *
AWS EventBridge0 9 * * ? *
JenkinsH 9 * * *
GitHub Actions0 9 * * *
node-cron0 9 * * *
Azure Functions0 0 9 * * *
Google Cloud Scheduler0 9 * * *

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.

Airflow DAG
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="0 9 * * *",  # 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

The common mistake with this schedule

9:00 AM in which time zone? Servers usually run in UTC, so 09:00 UTC is 14:30 in India. Set the time zone explicitly.

Frequently asked questions

How do I run a Apache Airflow job every day at 9:00 AM?

Use 0 9 * * *. At 09:00 UTC.

What is the every day at 9:00 AM cron expression in other systems?

Quartz: 0 0 9 * * ?; Spring: 0 0 9 * * *; Crontab: 0 9 * * *. 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.

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