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Google Cloud Scheduler cron expression: on the first day of every quarter
To run a Google Cloud Scheduler job on the first day of every quarter, use:
0 0 1 1,4,7,10 *At 00:00 UTC, on the 1st of the month, in Jan, Apr, Jul and Oct.
Your week at a glance
Upcoming runs
| # | Local | UTC | From now |
|---|
Copy-ready code
Why use this schedule
January, April, July and October: quarterly reporting and reviews. Finance and compliance teams in particular run on this rhythm, so these jobs tend to be important and rarely run.
- Quarterly business reviews
- Quarterly access recertification
- Quarterly invoices
First runs, as an example
Starting from 1 January 2027, evaluated in UTC:
| # | Date and time (UTC) |
|---|---|
| 1 | Fri, 01 Jan 2027, 00:00:00 |
| 2 | Thu, 01 Apr 2027, 00:00:00 |
| 3 | Thu, 01 Jul 2027, 00:00:00 |
| 4 | Fri, 01 Oct 2027, 00:00:00 |
| 5 | Sat, 01 Jan 2028, 00:00:00 |
| 6 | Sat, 01 Apr 2028, 00:00:00 |
On the first day of every quarter in every dialect
| System | Expression |
|---|---|
| Google Cloud Scheduler (this page) | 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * |
| Quartz | 0 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 ? |
| Spring | 0 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * |
| Crontab | 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * |
| Kubernetes | 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * |
| AWS EventBridge | 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 ? * |
| Jenkins | H 0 1 1,4,7,10 * |
| GitHub Actions | 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * |
| node-cron | 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * |
| Apache Airflow | 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * |
| Azure Functions | 0 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * |
Need to translate a different expression? Use the cron converter.
Ready-to-use Google Cloud Scheduler config
Drop this into your project. The expression is the one above.
gcloud scheduler jobs create http my-job \
--schedule="0 0 1 1,4,7,10 *" \
--time-zone="Etc/UTC" \
--uri="https://example.com/run" \
--http-method=POSTThe Google Cloud Scheduler 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 Google Cloud Scheduler
- If both day-of-month and day-of-week are set, the job runs when either matches (an inclusive OR), unless one of them is *.
- Pick the time zone explicitly (the default is UTC). Cloud Scheduler runs on wall-clock time, so a local zone can make jobs run or skip around daylight saving changes.
- Cloud Scheduler takes any tz database zone (default UTC) and runs on wall-clock time, so daylight saving can make jobs run or not run unexpectedly. Google recommends UTC to avoid that.
The common mistake with this schedule
There is no */3 shortcut that starts in January. */3 in the month field gives 1,4,7,10 in Unix cron, but an explicit list is clearer and safer across dialects.
Frequently asked questions
How do I run a Google Cloud Scheduler job on the first day of every quarter?
Use 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 *. At 00:00 UTC, on the 1st of the month, in Jan, Apr, Jul and Oct.
What is the on the first day of every quarter cron expression in other systems?
Quartz: 0 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 ?; Spring: 0 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 *; Crontab: 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 *. The table on this page lists every dialect.
Which time zone does Google Cloud Scheduler use for this schedule?
Cloud Scheduler takes any tz database zone (default UTC) and runs on wall-clock time, so daylight saving can make jobs run or not run unexpectedly. Google recommends UTC to avoid that.