AWS EventBridge Cron Expression Generator
AWS EventBridge (and the newer EventBridge Scheduler) use a six-field cron syntax wrapped in cron(...) — not the five-field Unix cron most tools assume. That extra Year field and a few dialect rules are exactly what trips people up when a rule silently never fires.
Use the generator below to build a schedule, see the next run times, and copy the cron() expression ready to paste into a rule, a CloudFormation template, or the Scheduler console.
Expression
Tip: press Ctrl+Enter to copy
Presets
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Description
At 09:00 AM, Monday through Friday
AWS EventBridge cron syntax
| Min | Hour | Day | Month | DOW | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 9 | ? | * | MON-FRI | * |
- Six fields: Minutes, Hours, Day-of-month, Month, Day-of-week, Year.
- You cannot use * in both Day-of-month and Day-of-week — one of them must be ? (a wildcard meaning "no specific value").
- Schedules are wrapped in cron(...), e.g. cron(0 9 ? * MON-FRI *).
- Day-of-week uses 1-7 (Sunday=1) or three-letter names like MON-FRI.
- Classic EventBridge rules run in UTC; EventBridge Scheduler lets you set a timezone.
- The shortest supported interval is one minute.
AWS EventBridge cron examples
Click any example to load it into the generator above.
Frequently asked questions
Why does AWS EventBridge use ? instead of *?
EventBridge does not allow * in both the Day-of-month and Day-of-week fields at once, because that would be ambiguous. You put ? in whichever of the two you are not constraining. For example, to run every weekday you set Day-of-week to MON-FRI and Day-of-month to ?.
Do I include the cron() wrapper?
Yes — EventBridge expects the schedule expression as cron(<6 fields>). This tool shows the bare fields in the builder and the wrapped cron(...) form in the copy output.
What timezone does EventBridge cron run in?
Classic EventBridge rules always run in UTC. EventBridge Scheduler (the newer service) supports a ScheduleExpressionTimezone so you can schedule in local time, including daylight-saving handling.