Tablespoons to Milliliters

Tablespoons and milliliters

The US tablespoon is half a US fluid ounce: exactly 14.78676478125 milliliters, or 3 teaspoons. Recipes use tablespoons for oil, butter, sauces and spices. Australian tablespoons are 20 mL.

The milliliter is one thousandth of a liter, the same volume as one cubic centimeter. Medicine doses, cosmetics, small bottles and metric recipes are measured in milliliters.

Worked example

Convert 2 tbsp: 2 × 14.78676478 = 29.57352956, so 2 tablespoons is 29.57352956 milliliters. Likewise 5 tbsp = 73.93382391 mL.

Estimating in your head

Multiply by 15 for a quick figure; it is off by about 1.4%. For 2 tbsp that gives 30 mL, against 29.5735 exactly.

Going the other way

To convert milliliters to tablespoons, divide by 14.78676478 (or multiply by 0.0676280454037). The swap button between the boxes opens that page.

mL = tbsp × 14.78676478

1 tbsp = ≈ 0.00001478676478 m³ and 1 mL = 0.000001 m³, both by definition, so the factor is their ratio: 14.78676478 (rounded here; the page uses the full value). Results drop binary floating-point noise beyond 15 significant digits and display at the precision you choose (6 significant figures by default). Copy result copies the full value.