Quarts to Cups Converter
Convert US quarts to cups — four cups to the quart, for stock and brine.
Updated
US cups
4.00cup
1 qt = 4.00 cup
In short
How many cups are in a quart?
A US liquid quart is exactly 4 cups, or 32 fluid ounces, which comes to 946.35 millilitres. It is not a litre: a litre is 5.67 percent larger. The US dry quart, used for produce sold by volume, is a separate unit again at about 1,101.22 millilitres.
Four cups, two pints and thirty-two fluid ounces are all the same quantity, so which name a recipe uses reflects batch size rather than measurement.
US quarts to US cups — quick reference
| US quarts (qt) | US cups (cup) |
|---|---|
| 0.3 qt | 1.00 cup |
| 0.5 qt | 2.00 cup |
| 0.8 qt | 3.00 cup |
| 1 qt | 4.00 cup |
| 1.5 qt | 6.00 cup |
| 2 qt | 8.00 cup |
| 3 qt | 12.00 cup |
| 4 qt | 16.00 cup |
The formula, worked line by line
The conversion multiplies by four, and the four is a definition. A US liquid quart is 32 fluid ounces and a cup is 8, both descended from the US liquid gallon of exactly 231 cubic inches. Fixing the inch at 2.54 centimetres in 1959 made every figure in the chain exact.
“The US gallon is exactly 231 cubic inches, and the inch is exactly 2.54 centimetres.”
So the arithmetic adds nothing. Every complication on this page comes from the quart sharing its name with a dry unit and sharing a shelf with the litre, neither of which the multiplication can warn you about.
cups = US liquid quarts x 4
1 US quart = 32 fl oz - 1 US cup = 8 fl oz
1 qt -> 1 x 4 = 4 cups
1 quart = 2 pints - 4 quarts = 1 gallon
US quart = 946.352946 mL - litre = 1,000 mL- Quarts entered
- 1
- Cups per quart
- 4, by definition
- Multiplication
- 1 x 4 = 4
- US cups
- 4 cups
The same quantity is also two pints, thirty-two fluid ounces and 946.35 millilitres. Which name a recipe reaches for says something about the size of the batch and nothing at all about the precision of the measurement.
Why a quart is not a litre
A US quart is 946.35 millilitres, so a litre is 5.67 percent larger. The same 5.67 percent separates a US pint from 500 millilitres and a US gallon from four litres, because every US liquid measure descends from the same 231 cubic inch gallon while every metric one descends from the litre.
- US cup against 250 mL
- 236.59 mL, 5.67 percent under
- US pint against 500 mL
- 473.18 mL, 5.67 percent under
- US quart against 1 litre
- 946.35 mL, 5.67 percent under
- US gallon against 4 litres
- 3,785.41 mL, 5.67 percent under
One ratio, four rungs. Knowing the single figure of 5.67 percent covers the entire conversion between the two systems for liquids.
The imperial quart is bigger again
An imperial quart is a quarter of the imperial gallon of exactly 4.54609 litres, which comes to 1,136.52 millilitres. It is 20.09 percent larger than the US quart and about 13.7 percent larger than a litre, so a British recipe calling for a quart is asking for more than a litre carton holds.
How to use the quarts to cups converter
A US liquid quart is 32 fluid ounces and a cup is 8, so a quart is four cups. Both units descend from the US liquid gallon of exactly 231 cubic inches, which makes the ratio a definition rather than a measurement. The conversion carries no rounding error at any quantity.
The quart is the working unit for anything a recipe buys by the carton and uses by the cup: stock, broth, buttermilk, cream. Knowing that one carton is four cups turns a shopping decision into a measuring one without arithmetic, which is why the unit has survived in American kitchens.
4 cups
A US liquid quart
946.35 mL, 32 fl oz
4.227 cups
One litre
5.67 percent more
4.65 cups
A US dry quart
1,101.22 mL, for produce
The litre is the comparison that matters most on a supermarket shelf. A quart and a litre carton look the same size and are not: the litre holds 53.65 millilitres more, which is about three and a half tablespoons. Substituting one for the other in a ratio-driven recipe moves the result.
For liquids the ladder stays tidy in both directions. A quart is four cups, two pints, or a quarter of a gallon. Halving gives a pint and halving again gives a cup, so a recipe can be scaled up or down without ever producing a number that needs a calculator.
- 1 cup
- 0.25 quarts
- 1 pint, two cups
- 0.5 quarts
- 1 quart, four cups
- 946.35 mL
- 1 gallon, four quarts
- 16 cups, 3,785.41 mL
- 1 litre
- 4.227 cups, 5.67 percent over a quart
- 1 imperial quart
- 1,136.52 mL, 20.09 percent over
The US quart is the only rung here that sits just below a round metric number, which is exactly why it gets confused with one.
When the batch reaches gallons
Four quarts make a gallon, defined as exactly 231 cubic inches. That page covers the gallon and the imperial gallon that is a fifth larger.
Open the quarts to gallons converter →US liquid quarts converted to cups, with the millilitre figure and the pint equivalent. Every row is exact, because a quart is four cups by definition.
| US liquid quarts | US cups | In millilitres |
|---|---|---|
| 0.25 qt | 1 cup | 236.59 mL |
| 0.5 qt | 2 cups | 473.18 mL |
| 0.75 qt | 3 cups | 709.76 mL |
| 1 qt | 4 cups | 946.35 mL |
| 1.5 qt | 6 cups | 1,419.53 mL |
| 2 qt | 8 cups | 1,892.71 mL |
| 3 qt | 12 cups | 2,839.06 mL |
| 4 qt | 16 cups | 3,785.41 mL |
| 5 qt | 20 cups | 4,731.76 mL |
| 6 qt | 24 cups | 5,678.12 mL |
| 8 qt | 32 cups | 7,570.82 mL |
| 12 qt | 48 cups | 11,356.24 mL |
| 16 qt | 64 cups | 15,141.65 mL |
The quart and the litre are not the same carton
A US quart is 946.35 millilitres and a litre is 1,000, a gap of 5.67 percent. On a shelf the two cartons are nearly indistinguishable, and in most cooking the difference is invisible. It stops being invisible wherever a recipe depends on the proportion between a liquid and something else.
The gap is not arbitrary. Every US liquid measure descends from a gallon defined as 231 cubic inches, and every metric one from the litre. The ratio between the two systems is therefore identical at every rung: a US pint sits 5.67 percent under 500 millilitres, and a US gallon 5.67 percent under four litres.
- The recipe asks for
- 1 quart, 946.35 mL, 4 cups
- The carton holds
- 1 litre, 1,000 mL, 4.227 cups
- Surplus if you use the whole carton
- 53.65 mL
- That surplus in spoons
- about 3.6 tablespoons
- When it matters
- custards, doughs, brines
In a soup or a braise, three and a half extra tablespoons of stock disappear. In a custard set by the ratio of liquid to egg, or a brine measured by salt concentration, the same surplus is a 5.67 percent dilution of everything the recipe was balancing.
The practical habit is to measure rather than to tip. Pouring four cups out of a litre carton and keeping the remainder takes ten seconds and removes the question entirely, which is easier than deciding case by case whether this particular recipe cares.
The dry quart, and why it still exists
The United States maintains two volume systems, and both use the words pint and quart. NIST Handbook 44 gives the dry quart as 67.200625 cubic inches and the liquid quart as exactly 57.75. The dry quart is 16.36 percent larger, working out to about 1,101.22 millilitres against 946.35.
This is not a historical curiosity. Federal container-labelling rules require dry commodities to be expressed in US bushels and their peck, dry-quart and dry-pint subdivisions, kept formally separate from the gallon and its subdivisions used for liquids. Produce sold by the quart is being sold in the dry unit.
- US liquid quart
- 57.75 cubic inches, 946.35 mL
- US dry quart
- 67.200625 cubic inches, 1,101.22 mL
- The difference
- 16.36 percent
- US bushel
- 2,150.42 cubic inches, 32 dry quarts
The bushel is the parent unit of the dry system, the way the gallon is of the liquid one. Neither converts into the other without going through cubic inches.
For a cook the consequence is narrow but real. A recipe calling for a quart of berries and a shop selling quart punnets are consistent with each other. A recipe calling for four cups of berries and a shopper reaching for a quart punnet is off by about a third of a cup, in the punnet’s favour.
Every US quarts value, worked out
36 common US quarts figures each get their own page, with the answer at full precision, the arithmetic, what rounding costs, and the nearest real-world reference point on the scale.
Questions people ask
Sources
Where the constants and formulas on this page come from. Each line names the figure it backs.
The US liquid quart is 32 US fluid ounces of exactly 29.5735295625 millilitres each, giving 946.352946 mL and exactly four US cups.
NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8 — Factors for units listed alphabetically — NIST
The US dry quart is 67.200625 cubic inches and the US liquid quart 57.75 cubic inches — separate units of capacity, with the bushel at 2,150.42 cubic inches.
NIST Handbook 44, Appendix C — Units of Capacity or Volume — National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2026 edition
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