Four cups make a quart. Every US liquid measure above the cup is a doubling of the one below it — cup, pint, quart — which is why the whole ladder is worth memorising once: 1 quart = 2 pints = 4 cups = 32 fluid ounces.
Where recipes go wrong is not the doubling. It is the three quiet variations: a dry quart is a different volume from a liquid quart, an imperial quart is 20% larger than a US one, and a metric cup is 250 mL rather than 236.6 mL.
| Unit | Cups | Fluid ounces | Millilitres |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 fluid ounce | ⅛ | 1 | 29.57 |
| ¼ cup | 0.25 | 2 | 59.15 |
| ½ cup | 0.5 | 4 | 118.29 |
| 1 cup | 1 | 8 | 236.59 |
| 1 pint | 2 | 16 | 473.18 |
| 1 quart | 4 | 32 | 946.35 |
| 2 quarts (½ gallon) | 8 | 64 | 1,892.71 |
| 1 gallon | 16 | 128 | 3,785.41 |
| Quarts | Cups | Fluid ounces | Litres |
|---|---|---|---|
| ¼ qt | 1 | 8 | 0.237 |
| ½ qt | 2 | 16 | 0.473 |
| 1 qt | 4 | 32 | 0.946 |
| 1½ qt | 6 | 48 | 1.420 |
| 2 qt | 8 | 64 | 1.893 |
| 3 qt | 12 | 96 | 2.839 |
| 4 qt | 16 | 128 | 3.785 |
| 6 qt | 24 | 192 | 5.678 |
The cup, pint, quart, gallon ladder
Each step up doubles, and the whole system hangs off one legal definition: the US gallon is exactly 231 cubic inches, which works out to exactly 3.785411784 litres.
- 1 gallon = 4 quarts = 8 pints = 16 cups = 128 fluid ounces
- 1 quart = 2 pints = 4 cups = 32 fluid ounces
- 1 pint = 2 cups = 16 fluid ounces
- 1 cup = 8 fluid ounces = 16 tablespoons = 48 teaspoons
A useful shortcut for halves: half a quart is a pint (2 cups), and half a gallon is 2 quarts (8 cups).
Dry quarts are bigger than liquid quarts
The US keeps two separate quarts, and the difference is not small. A dry quart is 1,101.22 mL against the liquid quart’s 946.35 mL — about 16% larger, or roughly 4.65 liquid cups.
The dry quart exists to measure produce sold by volume: berries, tomatoes, green beans. If a farm stand sells you a "quart of strawberries," that is the dry quart, which is why a quart box of berries looks bigger than a quart of milk.
For cooking, this almost never comes up — recipes calling for a quart mean the liquid quart, and dry ingredients like flour and sugar are measured in liquid-measure cups. The one place to be careful is a recipe that specifies "1 dry quart" of a fresh ingredient by volume.
US, imperial and metric cups
Three different cups are in circulation, and a recipe rarely tells you which one it means:
- US customary cup: 236.59 mL (8 US fluid ounces) — American recipes
- Metric cup: 250 mL — Australia, New Zealand, and most modern metric recipe writing
- Imperial cup: 284.13 mL (10 imperial fluid ounces) — older British recipes; modern UK recipes almost always use grams and millilitres instead
The quart follows the same split. An imperial quart is 1,136.52 mL, about 20% larger than the US quart, though it still divides into 4 imperial cups. So "4 cups to a quart" holds in both systems while the actual volume differs — a trap when scaling a British recipe.
In metric cups, a US quart is 3.79 cups rather than 4 — measuring with metric cups gives you about 6% more liquid. For most baking that is survivable; for custards, brines and anything set with gelatine it is not. When precision matters, weigh the ingredient or convert through millilitres.
Fluid ounces are not ounces
A fluid ounce measures volume; an ounce measures weight. They coincide only for water, which weighs almost exactly 1 ounce per fluid ounce — and that coincidence is where recipes go wrong.
Eight fluid ounces of honey weighs about 12 ounces. Eight fluid ounces of flour weighs about 4.25 ounces. So "8 oz of flour" and "1 cup of flour" are entirely different quantities, and using a measuring cup for an ingredient specified by weight can be off by nearly a factor of two.
The rule of thumb: if a recipe lists "oz" for a dry ingredient, it almost certainly means weight — use a scale. If it lists "fl oz" or a cup measure, it means volume.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many cups are in a quart?
Four US cups. A quart is 32 fluid ounces and a cup is 8, so 32 ÷ 8 = 4. A quart is also 2 pints, and a quarter of a gallon — which is where the name comes from.
How many cups are in 2 quarts?
Eight cups, or 64 fluid ounces. Two quarts is also half a gallon, so the half-gallon carton in your fridge holds 8 cups.
Is a quart the same as a litre?
No, but they are close. A US liquid quart is 0.946 litres, so a litre is about 5.7% more than a quart. For a large batch that gap matters: 4 quarts is 3.785 litres, nearly a quarter-litre short of 4 litres.
How many cups are in a dry quart?
About 4.65 US liquid cups. A dry quart is 1,101.22 mL against the liquid quart’s 946.35 mL — roughly 16% larger. Dry quarts are used for produce sold by volume, like berries, not for measuring in recipes.
How many cups are in a pint?
Two cups, or 16 fluid ounces. A pint is half a quart, so the doubling runs cup → pint → quart at every step.
Are UK and US quarts the same?
No. An imperial (UK) quart is 1,136.52 mL, about 20% larger than the US quart’s 946.35 mL. Both divide into 4 cups, so a British recipe calling for a quart needs roughly a fifth more liquid than an American one.