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Liters to Milliliters Converter

Convert liters to milliliters instantly, with a reference table for bottles, doses and container sizes.

Liters to ML Converter

1 L = 1,000 mL

Multiply liters by 1,000 to get milliliters.

The link carries the values you entered, so whoever opens it sees the same result. Nothing is stored on our side — the numbers travel in the link itself.

Liters to milliliters reference table

The conversions people look up most often, rounded to 2 decimal places.

Common liters to milliliters conversions
Liter (L)Milliliter (mL)
0.005 L5 mL
0.05 L50 mL
0.1 L100 mL
0.25 L250 mL
0.33 L330 mL
0.5 L500 mL
0.75 L750 mL
1 L1,000 mL
1.5 L1,500 mL
2 L2,000 mL
5 L5,000 mL
10 L10,000 mL

The liters people look up most

0.33 L = 330 mL
A standard European can or small bottle, 330 ml. Labels print it as 0.33 L, which is what sends people looking.
0.5 L = 500 mL
The standard water bottle almost everywhere outside the United States, where the same bottle is labelled 16.9 fl oz.
1 L = 1,000 mL
A thousand millilitres exactly - milli means one thousandth, so there is no conversion factor involved.
1.5 L = 1,500 mL
The large bottle size, and roughly what an adult is usually told to drink in a day.
2 L = 2,000 mL
US soft drinks are sold in exactly this size, in a country that otherwise avoids metric.
5 L = 5,000 mL
Jerry cans, paint and bulk cooking oil, where metric labelling is near-universal.

How the liters to ml calculation works

A litre is 1,000 millilitres:

milliliters = liters × 1000

A litre is also exactly 1,000 cubic centimetres, which makes the metric system's volume units unusually convenient: 1 ml is 1 cm³, and one litre of water weighs one kilogram at 4°C. Those three facts turn most volume-to-weight estimating into no arithmetic at all.

Standard container sizes:

  • 0.33 L → 330 ml (a European can)
  • 0.5 L → 500 ml (a small water bottle)
  • 0.75 L → 750 ml (a wine bottle)
  • 1 L → 1,000 ml
  • 1.5 L → 1,500 ml
  • 2 L → 2,000 ml (a soda bottle)

Engine displacement is quoted both ways: a "2.0 litre" engine is 2,000 cc, and motorcycle engines are usually given in cc directly — a 600 cc bike is a 0.6 L engine. Same number, different convention by vehicle type.

Medicine and IV fluids work in millilitres exclusively, because the doses are small and a decimal point in the wrong place on a litre figure is a thousandfold error. A 500 ml saline bag is never written as 0.5 L on a chart for exactly that reason.

Fuel economy in L/100 km uses litres, while small-engine oil ratios use millilitres — a 50:1 two-stroke mix is 20 ml of oil per litre of petrol, which is where the two meet.

To convert back, divide by 1,000.

Frequently asked questions

Why is a bottle labelled 1.5 L rather than 1500 ml?

Convention, and a fairly strict one. Liquid quantities below a litre are normally declared in millilitres or centilitres and those of a litre or more in litres, so 500 ml and 1.5 L are both standard forms while 1500 ml is not one you will see on a label. The same rule is why you meet 1.5 L and not 150 cl.

Does one millilitre of everything weigh a gram?

Only water, and only near 4°C. A millilitre of water weighs almost exactly a gram, which is where the convenience comes from, but milk is about 1.03 g per ml, olive oil 0.91 and honey 1.42. For anything else the litre figure tells you the space occupied and nothing about the weight. Petrol at 0.74 g per ml means a 50 L tank adds about 37 kg to the car.

What is a centilitre, and why is it only on bottles?

A hundredth of a litre, or 10 ml. It survives almost entirely on alcohol labels in continental Europe and on bar measures - a 4 cl spirit measure is 40 ml. Nothing else uses it, because the metric system in daily practice jumps from millilitres to litres and leaves the intermediate steps to the drinks trade.

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Further reading