Cron schedule

Cron every 30 seconds

Cron's smallest step is one minute, but two crontab lines (or one Laravel method) get you a run every 30 seconds.

What it does

Cron cannot run more often than once a minute. To run something every 30 seconds, run it every minute and once more after a 30-second sleep, or use Laravel's sub-minute schedules (Laravel 10+), which keep schedule:run alive for the whole minute.

Crontab line

Add it with crontab -e over SSH. Replace the path with your script; the redirect keeps cron from emailing you the output.

* * * * * /path/to/command
* * * * * sleep 30; /path/to/command

In Laravel

Define the task in routes/console.php (Laravel 11 and 12):

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schedule;

Schedule::command('reports:send')->everyThirtySeconds();

Then add the scheduler's single crontab entry once; it checks every task each minute:

* * * * * cd /path/to/your-app && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

In cPanel

Open Cron Jobs under Advanced.
Add the first line with all five fields set to *, then a second one with the same fields and sleep 30; before the command.
In Command, use the full path to PHP, for example /usr/local/bin/php /home/user/app/artisan schedule:run.
Click Add New Cron Job. Some hosts limit how often cron may run; check your plan if it seems to skip runs.

Frequently asked questions

Can cron run every 30 seconds?

No. The smallest unit in a crontab is one minute. Add two lines that both run every minute, with sleep 30 before the command in the second one, or let a long-running worker (a loop or a queue worker) handle it.

How does Laravel run tasks every 30 seconds?

With ->everyThirtySeconds() (Laravel 10 and later). The usual every-minute schedule:run entry stays the same; Laravel keeps the scheduler running for the whole minute and starts the task twice.

Will a shared host allow this?

Many shared hosts only allow cron every 5 or 15 minutes and kill long-running processes. Check your host's limits before relying on sub-minute schedules.