What is the cron expression for every Monday?

0 0 * * 1 runs at midnight every Monday. 0 0 * * MON is equivalent where names are supported.

How do I run on the first Monday of the month?

Standard cron can’t express it in one field. Run 0 0 1-7 * * and check that date +%u is 1 inside the job (escape % as \% in crontab). Spring and Quartz support MON#1, and systemd supports Mon *-*-01..07.

Is Monday 1 or 2 in cron?

In standard cron, Monday is 1. In Quartz and Cloudflare Workers, Monday is 2 because they count Sunday as 1.

Cron schedule

Cron every Monday

The cron expression for every Monday is 0 0 * * 1: 00:00 on Monday, once a week. 0 0 * * MON is the same where weekday names are allowed.

Every Monday
Expression	`0 0 * * 1`
Runs	52 times in 2027
systemd OnCalendar	`Mon --* 00:00:00`

How it works

In the day-of-week field Monday is 1 (Sunday is 0). With the day of month left as *, the only condition is the weekday, so the job fires 52 or 53 times a year.

Monday midnight is a natural boundary for weekly reports, since the previous week has just closed. For something people should see when they arrive, use a morning hour, like 0 8 * * 1. Note that systemd’s weekly keyword also means Monday 00:00, unlike cron’s @weekly, which is Sunday.

The one thing Monday schedules are famous for is the “first Monday of the month” mistake, below. It catches experienced people because the obvious expression parses fine and runs far too often.

Field-by-field breakdown
Field	Value	Meaning
Minute	`0`	minute 0 (on the hour)
Hour	`0`	hour 0 (12 AM)
Day of month	`*`	every day of the month
Month	`*`	every month
Day of week	`1`	Monday

Next runs

Scheduler clock

As on GitHub Actions without timezone, Vercel, Cloudflare and Kubernetes with timeZone "Etc/UTC".

Next run times, computed in your browser from the current time
Run	Your time	UTC
1	Calculating…
2
3
4
5

Ready-to-paste versions

The same schedule for each scheduler, with what differs on each one.

crontab (Linux, macOS, BSD)

crontab -e

# m h dom mon dow  command
0 0 * * 1 /usr/local/bin/job.sh >> /var/log/job.log 2>&1

cron uses the server’s time zone. On cronie (Fedora, RHEL), a CRON_TZ=Europe/London line above the entry changes the zone for the entries below it.

GitHub Actions

.github/workflows/scheduled.yml

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 0 * * 1'
      # timezone: 'America/New_York'  # optional; UTC when omitted
  workflow_dispatch: {}

Runs in UTC unless you set timezone, and only on the default branch. GitHub’s docs warn that scheduled runs can be delayed at busy times and that schedules in public repositories are disabled after 60 days without activity.
The start of every hour is GitHub’s busiest slot. If the exact minute doesn’t matter, move the 0 to something like 17 to get picked up sooner.
With a timezone that observes DST, a time skipped by the spring-forward change advances to the next valid time (the docs’ example: 2:30 AM becomes 3:00 AM).

Kubernetes CronJob

cronjob.yaml

apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
  name: scheduled-job
spec:
  schedule: "0 0 * * 1"
  timeZone: "Etc/UTC"
  concurrencyPolicy: Forbid
  jobTemplate:
    spec:
      template:
        spec:
          restartPolicy: OnFailure
          containers:
            - name: job
              image: busybox:1.36
              command: ["/bin/sh", "-c", "date; echo running"]

spec.timeZone is stable since Kubernetes 1.27; without it, the kube-controller-manager’s zone applies. concurrencyPolicy: Forbid skips a run while the previous Job is still active.

Vercel Cron Jobs

vercel.json

{
  "crons": [
    { "path": "/api/cron", "schedule": "0 0 * * 1" }
  ]
}

Vercel always uses UTC, doesn’t accept names like MON or JAN, and won’t let you set both day of month and day of week.
This fits the Hobby plan, but Hobby precision is per hour: the invocation can land anywhere within the scheduled hour.

Cloudflare Workers

wrangler.toml

[triggers]
crons = ["0 0 * * MON"]

Cron Triggers run on UTC. Changes can take up to 15 minutes to propagate across Cloudflare’s network.
Cloudflare numbers weekdays 1 = Sunday to 7 = Saturday, unlike standard cron, so the example uses names (MON, SUN), which are unambiguous.

node-cron (Node.js)

scheduler.js

import cron from 'node-cron';

// 6 fields: the first one (seconds) is optional
cron.schedule('0 0 0 * * 1', async () => {
  await runJob();
}, { timezone: 'UTC', noOverlap: true });

The schedule lives inside the Node process: if it’s down, nothing runs, and three replicas run the job three times. noOverlap skips a tick while the previous run is still going.

systemd timer

job.timer + job.service

# /etc/systemd/system/job.timer
[Unit]
Description=Run job.service every Monday at midnight

[Timer]
OnCalendar=Mon *-*-* 00:00:00
Persistent=true

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

# /etc/systemd/system/job.service
[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/job.sh

# systemctl daemon-reload && systemctl enable --now job.timer

Check it with systemd-analyze calendar 'Mon *-*-* 00:00:00', which prints the normalized form and the next elapse. AccuracySec defaults to 1min, so the start can drift by up to a minute.
Persistent=true runs the job at boot if the machine was off at the scheduled time, which plain cron doesn’t do.

Spring @Scheduled and Quartz

Java

@Scheduled(cron = "0 0 0 * * 1", zone = "UTC")
public void runJob() {
    // ...
}

// Quartz CronTrigger:
CronScheduleBuilder.cronSchedule("0 0 0 ? * MON")

In Spring, the first of the 6 fields is seconds; the rest follow standard cron (0 or 7 = Sunday).
In Quartz, one of the two day fields must be ?, and weekdays run 1 = Sunday to 7 = Saturday, which is why the example uses names.

Pitfalls

`0 0 1-7 * 1` is not the first Monday of the month

When both day fields are restricted, crontab(5) says the job runs when either matches. That expression runs on days 1 to 7 AND every Monday, 10 or 11 times a month. Use 0 0 1-7 * * with [ "$(date +\%u)" = 1 ] && job.sh, or MON#1 in Spring and Quartz.

Monday 00:00 UTC is Sunday evening in the Americas

On GitHub, Vercel or Cloudflare, 0 0 * * 1 fires at 21:00 Sunday in São Paulo and 19:00 or 20:00 Sunday in New York. Weekly jobs that should run “Monday morning” need a later UTC hour.

1 is Sunday in Quartz and Cloudflare

Both number weekdays from 1 = Sunday, so 1 there means Sunday. Write MON.

Frequently asked questions

What is the cron expression for every Monday?: 0 0 * * 1 runs at midnight every Monday. 0 0 * * MON is equivalent where names are supported.
How do I run a cron job every Monday at 9 AM?: 0 9 * * 1.
How do I run on the first Monday of the month?: Standard cron can’t express it in one field. Run 0 0 1-7 * * and check that date +%u is 1 inside the job (escape % as \% in crontab). Spring and Quartz support MON#1, and systemd supports Mon *-*-01..07.
Is Monday 1 or 2 in cron?: In standard cron, Monday is 1. In Quartz and Cloudflare Workers, Monday is 2 because they count Sunday as 1.

Last reviewed September 27, 2026 by Arielton Oberek.