How Many Seconds in a Day?

Math Skills: How many seconds are there in a day? How many seconds are in 24 hours?

If you are wondering how many seconds are in day, then you’re in the right place.

Whether you are working on a math problem, teaching students, or simply just curious about how many seconds there are in a day, this page will give you an exact answer of how many seconds are in a day, as well as how to use some simple math to calculate this number on your own. This page also shares a free PDF time conversion chart that you can download a reference.

Are you ready to find out how many seconds there are in one 24 hour day? Let’s get started.

How Many Seconds are in a Day?

Before we calculate how many seconds there are in a day, let’s quickly not some key information:

Time is measured using the following units: seconds, minutes, hours, and days.
One day is equal to 24 hours.

**Figure 01:** How many seconds in a day explained.

Now, let’s calculate how many seconds in day as follows:

Explanation:

1 day = 24 hours
1 hour = 60 minutes
1 minute = 60 seconds

So, we can determine the number of seconds in one hour as follows:

60 x 60 = 3,600 → There are 3,600 seconds in one hour

And, since there are 24 hours in a day, we can calculate how many seconds in a day as follows:

3,600 x 24 = 86,400 → There are 86,400 seconds in one day

✅ Answer: There are 86,400 seconds in one 24 hour day.

How Many Seconds are in a Day?

Now that we know that there are exactly 86,400 seconds in a day, let’s take a closer look at how we solved this problem mathematically.

Remember that:

There are 24 hours in one day.

There are 60 minutes in every hour.
There are 60 seconds in every minute.

So, this problem can be solved as simply as finding the following product:

24 × 60 × 60 = 86,400

Therefore, we can mathematically conclude that there are exactly 86,400 seconds in a day.

**Figure 03:** How many seconds in a day? (Photo by Agê Barros on Unsplash)

Knowing How Many Seconds is in a Day is Important Because…

Knowing the factual answer to how many seconds are in a day (there are exactly 86,400 seconds in a day) has many useful applications in real-life, such as:

Making accurate calculations in fields like astronomy and physics
Computer programing and quantum computing
Managing time and scheduling
Working with “small-scale” time events involving seconds and milliseconds
Converting between different units of time

Understanding the context of time and how it functions

If you know how to calculate how many seconds are in a day, then you can also solve similar problems.

For example, if you wanted to figure out how many seconds are in 3 hours, you could perform the following calculation:

3 x 60 x 60 = 10,800 or 3 x 3,600 = 10,800

And, you could conclude that there are 10,800 seconds in 3 hours.

For your reference, the table below shows how many seconds there are for a total number of hours from 0 all the way to 24 hours (one full day). It should come as no surprise that the final row tells us how many seconds are in a day—which we know is 86,400.

  
      Hour
      Seconds
      Computation
    

  000 × 3600 = 0
136001 × 3600 = 3600
272002 × 3600 = 7200
3108003 × 3600 = 10800
4144004 × 3600 = 14400
5180005 × 3600 = 18000
6216006 × 3600 = 21600
7252007 × 3600 = 25200
8288008 × 3600 = 28800
9324009 × 3600 = 32400
103600010 × 3600 = 36000
113960011 × 3600 = 39600
124320012 × 3600 = 43200
134680013 × 3600 = 46800
145040014 × 3600 = 50400
155400015 × 3600 = 54000
165760016 × 3600 = 57600
176120017 × 3600 = 61200
186480018 × 3600 = 64800
196840019 × 3600 = 68400
207200020 × 3600 = 72000
217560021 × 3600 = 75600
227920022 × 3600 = 79200
238280023 × 3600 = 82800
248640024 × 3600 = 86400

Free PDF Time Conversion Chart

If you are making conversions between hours, days, and/or seconds quite often, then having a reference chart can be very handy.

✅ Click here to download your free PDF Time Conversion Chart

(We recommend that you download and print the one-page chart and keep it in your math notebook or textbook so that you can reference it quickly and easily whenever you need to make an accurate time conversion).

Conclusion: How Many Seconds in a Day?

Now that we have fully explored and learned how many seconds are in a day, we conclude that:

One 24-hour day has exactly 86,400 seconds.

This fact will never change, and you can use it to solve math problems, interpret and convert units of time, and impress your friends and family with your knowledge of obscure math facts!