Cups to liters converter, US, label and metric cups side by side.

To convert US cups to liters, multiply the cups by 0.236588. One cup is 0.2366 L, which is 236.6 mL. Four cups is 0.94635 L, 8 cups is 1.8927 L and 16 cups is 3.7854 L, which is exactly one US gallon. For the other way round, multiply liters by 4.22675: one liter is a little over four US cups, not exactly four. Many searches say "cups to l", and the L here is the liter symbol.

How to use the converter

1. Type the amount in the US cups (cup) box. A decimal such as 2.5 or a fraction such as 3/4 or 2 1/2 works.
2. The big result shows Liters (L). Use Decimals in the side column to fix the number of places.
3. The cards under the result show the same amount in other units.
4. Type in the second box, or press ⇄, to go the other way.
5. Click a row in Common values to load it. Copy result, Copy link, Copy table and Print chart keep the answer. Start again resets the box.
6. Under the tables, Convert a list takes many amounts at once. Paste one per line, for example a column from a spreadsheet, and read them all in the units shown above. Copy results copies the table, and the swap button turns the list around.
7. The line called Kitchen measure rounds a cup, spoon, fluid ounce, pint, quart or gallon result to a fraction you can measure, and says how far off it is. Pick 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/8 or 1/16 beside it.

Three cups, three answers

The word cup is not one size. Three sizes matter when you turn cups into liters, and this page shows all three so you can pick the one your recipe uses.

Handbook 44 and the eCFR were checked on 26 Oct 2026. The US gallon is defined as 231 cubic inches, which is exactly 3.785411784 liters, and a cup is a sixteenth of it. That is where 0.2365882365 liters comes from. The sizes are close, but over a big batch they add up: 16 US cups is 3.7854 L, 16 label cups is 3.84 L and 16 metric cups is 4 L.

Cups in liters, by cup size

Worked examples

• 3 cups of milk. 3 × 0.236588 = 0.70976 L, or 709.76 mL.
• 2 1/2 cups of stock. Type 2 1/2 and read 0.59147 L.
• 8 cups of water. 1.8927 L. A 2 liter bottle holds 8.4535 US cups, so 8 cups fits with room to spare.
• A 1.5 liter carton. 6.3401 US cups, a little over 6 and 1/3.
• A 4 liter pot of soup. 16.907 US cups. That is just over a gallon, since a gallon is 3.785 L.

Why four cups is not one liter

It is easy to remember 4 cups as a liter, and the mistake is small, but it is a mistake. Four US cups is 0.94635 L, about 5 percent under a liter (946.353 mL against 1,000 mL). The reason is that a US quart, which is 4 cups, is slightly smaller than a liter. Four metric cups of 250 mL is exactly one liter. For soup or tea the gap does not matter. For baking, brining or a fixed-size container, it can. Use the cup size your recipe was written for, and when a recipe gives both cups and mL, trust the mL.

Liquid cups and dry cups

This tool converts volume to volume. A cup of flour or rice is a volume too, so 0.47318 L means the space two cups fill, not how heavy it is. To go from volume to weight you need the density of the food. See mL to grams for that step.

Mistakes to avoid

Mixing the cup sizes is the first. A recipe from a country that uses the metric cup will turn out a little small if you use a US cup. The second is rounding too early: use the exact figure, then round the final liters. The third is mixing up the capital L and the lowercase l. NIST says the liter symbol is L in the US, so write 0.24 L and not 0.24 l, because the lowercase letter looks like the number 1.

See also Liters to cups, Cups to mL, Quarts to liters and mL to cups.