Cron monthly on the last day at noon: the expression, explained, in Laravel
The cron expression for “monthly on the last day at noon” is 0 12 28 * *. This page shows what each field does, the next five times it will fire, the mistake most people make with it, and a working Laravel example you can paste.
The expression
| Field | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| minute | 0 | exactly 0 |
| hour | 12 | exactly 12 |
| day of month | 28 | exactly 28 |
| month | * | every month |
| day of week | * | every day of week |
Next five runs (UTC, from now)
- 2026-09-28 12:00 UTC
- 2026-10-28 12:00 UTC
- 2026-11-28 12:00 UTC
- 2026-12-28 12:00 UTC
- 2027-01-28 12:00 UTC
Mistakes people make with this schedule
- Cron has no "last day of the month". Day 28 is the latest date every month has, so it is the portable choice; "L" only works in Quartz-style schedulers, and 31 silently skips short months.
- Assuming the server clock is your clock. Cron runs in the machine’s timezone unless the runtime says otherwise; the examples here are UTC.
- No lock around a job that might overlap itself, and no alert when it silently stops. That second one is what Supercrontab is for.
Run it in your stack
// routes/console.php
Schedule::command('reports:send')
->cron('0 12 28 * *')
->timezone('UTC')
->withoutOverlapping();Requires the scheduler itself to be started every minute: `* * * * * php artisan schedule:run`.
Questions
Does 0 12 28 * * run in my local time?
Only if the scheduler is configured for it. crontab uses the system timezone; Vercel and GitHub Actions always use UTC; Laravel and node-cron take a timezone option. In Supercrontab the timezone is a field on the job.
What if the previous run is still going?
Classic cron starts the next run anyway. Add a lock (flock on Linux, withoutOverlapping() in Laravel) or let Supercrontab skip the tick while the previous request is open.
Is there a shorter way to write this?
No. The five-field form is the shortest portable version.