Monthly
0 0 1 1,4,7,10 *
Run on the 1st of January, April, July, and October at midnight.
This preview is live: the table below shows the actual next run times for 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * in your time zone, recomputed in your browser. Change the expression, dialect, or zone to experiment, then copy the result.
What 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * means
0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * fires on the first day of each calendar quarter, January, April, July, and October, by listing those four months explicitly. Cron's */3 step would also fire every three months, but anchored to month 1 it gives the same quarters, but the explicit list is clearer about intent.
Quarterly jobs handle the cadence that finance and planning live by: quarterly reports, billing for quarterly plans, OKR resets, and compliance checks that recur every three months.
Field-by-field breakdown
Unix cron has five fields. Here is what each one is doing in this expression:
| Field | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Minute | 0 | minute = 0 |
| Hour | 0 | hour = 0 |
| Day of month | 1 | day-of-month = 1 |
| Month | 1,4,7,10 | the specific values 1,4,7,10 of month |
| Day of week | * | every day-of-week |
Every quarter in every scheduler
The same cadence written for the seven cron dialects you are most likely to meet. Copy the line for the system you target, the field count and day-of-week numbering differ between them.
| Scheduler | Expression | Copy |
|---|---|---|
| Unix / crontab | 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * | |
| GitHub Actions | 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * | |
| Kubernetes CronJob | 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * | |
| Vercel Cron | 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * | |
| Quartz | 0 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 ? * | |
| Spring | 0 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 ? | |
| AWS EventBridge | 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 ? * |
When you would use 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 *
- Quarterly financial reports and board packs.
- Billing runs for quarterly subscription plans.
- Quarterly OKR resets or compliance reviews.
The gotcha worth knowing
If your fiscal quarters don't start in January, list your actual quarter-start months (e.g. 2,5,8,11). The default 1,4,7,10 assumes a calendar-aligned fiscal year.
People also search for
0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * FAQ
What does the cron expression 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * mean?
0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * means: Run on the 1st of January, April, July, and October at midnight. 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * fires on the first day of each calendar quarter, January, April, July, and October, by listing those four months explicitly. Cron's */3 step would also fire every three months, but anchored to month 1 it gives the same quarters, but the explicit list is clearer about intent.
How do I write "every quarter" in GitHub Actions?
Use 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * in the schedule's cron field. If your fiscal quarters don't start in January, list your actual quarter-start months (e.g. 2,5,8,11). The default 1,4,7,10 assumes a calendar-aligned fiscal year.
How do I write "every quarter" for AWS EventBridge?
EventBridge uses six fields with a required year and a ? placeholder in one day field: 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 ? *. Wrap it as cron(0 0 1 1,4,7,10 ? *) in the console or CloudFormation.
What is the Quartz equivalent of 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 *?
Quartz is seconds-first with a trailing year, so the equivalent is 0 0 0 1 1,4,7,10 ? *. Remember Quartz numbers Sunday as 1, the opposite of Unix.
Related cron patterns
More cron tools
Browse the full set of cron pattern pages, or jump to the interactive tools: the cron expression builder for designing a schedule from scratch, the cron cheat sheet for a side-by-side reference, the cron timezone translator for moving a schedule between zones and dialects, and the GitHub Actions cron picker for DST-stable CI schedules.