Cron expression for every 5 minutes
*/5 * * * *
Open in the tool →
*/5 in the minute field means “every 5th minute starting from 0”, so the job fires at :00, :05, :10 … :55 — twelve times an hour, around the clock.
In plain English: “Every 5 minutes”
Field breakdown
| Minute | */5 |
| Hour | * |
| Day of month | * |
| Month | * |
| Day of week | * |
Next run times (UTC)
- Mon, Jul 6, 2026 · 4:00 AM UTC in 6 sec
- Mon, Jul 6, 2026 · 4:05 AM UTC in 5 minutes
- Mon, Jul 6, 2026 · 4:10 AM UTC in 10 minutes
- Mon, Jul 6, 2026 · 4:15 AM UTC in 15 minutes
- Mon, Jul 6, 2026 · 4:20 AM UTC in 20 minutes
See these in your own timezone.
When to use it
- Polling an external API on a steady cadence without hammering it.
- Warming a cache or refreshing a materialized view.
- Scraping metrics or exporting monitoring data.
- Retrying a lightweight sync that must stay fresh but not constant.
Related schedules
Good to know
- Don't confuse */5 with 5 — the plain expression 5 * * * * runs once an hour, at minute 5, not every five minutes.
- Steps are anchored to 0, so the run times align to the top of the hour rather than drifting.