Home โบ node-cron โบ Every day at midnight
node-cron cron expression: every day at midnight
To run a node-cron job every day at midnight, use:
0 0 * * *At 00:00 UTC.
Your week at a glance
Upcoming runs
| # | Local | UTC | From now |
|---|
Copy-ready code
Why use this schedule
The default nightly slot. Everything that can wait until the day is over runs here.
- Daily reports for the previous day
- Archiving old records
- Resetting daily counters or quotas
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 | Sat, 02 Jan 2027, 00:00:00 |
| 3 | Sun, 03 Jan 2027, 00:00:00 |
| 4 | Mon, 04 Jan 2027, 00:00:00 |
| 5 | Tue, 05 Jan 2027, 00:00:00 |
| 6 | Wed, 06 Jan 2027, 00:00:00 |
Every day at midnight in every dialect
| System | Expression |
|---|---|
| node-cron (this page) | 0 0 * * * |
| Quartz | 0 0 0 * * ? |
| Spring | 0 0 0 * * * |
| Crontab | 0 0 * * * |
| Kubernetes | 0 0 * * * |
| AWS EventBridge | 0 0 * * ? * |
| Jenkins | H 0 * * * |
| GitHub Actions | 0 0 * * * |
| Apache Airflow | 0 0 * * * |
| Azure Functions | 0 0 0 * * * |
| Google Cloud Scheduler | 0 0 * * * |
Need to translate a different expression? Use the cron converter.
Ready-to-use node-cron config
Drop this into your project. The expression is the one above.
import cron from 'node-cron';
cron.schedule('0 0 * * *', () => {
console.log('running a task');
}, { timezone: 'UTC' });The node-cron fields, in order: second (0-59), 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 node-cron
- Five fields: minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week. Add a leading seconds field for sub-minute schedules.
- node-cron uses the server time zone unless you pass { timezone: "Asia/Kolkata" }. Its documentation advises timezone: "UTC" for jobs that must not skip or repeat when clocks change.
The common mistake with this schedule
Midnight is the busiest minute on many shared systems. If your job is not time-critical, run it at 02:17 instead of 00:00.
Frequently asked questions
How do I run a node-cron job every day at midnight?
Use 0 0 * * *. At 00:00 UTC.
What is the every day at midnight cron expression in other systems?
Quartz: 0 0 0 * * ?; Spring: 0 0 0 * * *; Crontab: 0 0 * * *. The table on this page lists every dialect.
Which time zone does node-cron use for this schedule?
node-cron uses the server time zone unless you pass { timezone: "Asia/Kolkata" }. Its documentation advises timezone: "UTC" for jobs that must not skip or repeat when clocks change.