cmd - how to show completion time of a command?

Command Line (cmd)

You can wrap the command in a quoted string, enable delayed variable expansion, and use ! so the variable expands at execution time rather than when the line is parsed.

cmd /V:ON /C "echo !DATE! !TIME! & timeout 5 & echo !DATE! !TIME!"

Output

Wed 11/19/2025  0:03:00.45

Waiting for 0 seconds, press a key to continue ...
Wed 11/19/2025  0:03:05.19

Supporting Help

• cmd /?

/C      Carries out the command specified by string and then terminate

/V:ON   Enable delayed environment variable expansion using ! as the
        delimiter. For example, /V:ON would allow !var! to expand the
        variable var at execution time.  The var syntax expands variables
        at input time, which is quite a different thing when inside of a FOR
        loop.

Use net time instead.

For example, either of the following:

net time \\%userdomain% & timeout 5 & net time \\%userdomain%

or

net time %logonserver% & timeout 5 & net time %logonserver%

produce the following output:

Current time at \\<PCNAME> is 11/18/2025 8:34:30 PM
The command completed successfully.
Waiting for <5... 0> seconds, press a key to continue ...
Current time at \\<PCNAME>is 11/18/2025 8:34:35 PM
The command completed successfully.

You can also use the environment variables \\%USERDOMAIN_ROAMINGPROFILE% and \\%USERDOMAIN%. Note that %logonserver% includes the Windows backslashes of the UNC path.

You'll notice the first and the second values are identical.

Of course, as variables in cmd are expanded when the command is parsed. There's EnableDelayedExpansion option that you can play with, but I don't think it's an optimal way of measuring command execution times anyways, too much repetitive typing/copying.

Instead I'd recommend using a prompt modifier like Oh My Posh that can automatically output execution time of last command on the fly with execution time segment.

As Destroy mentioned, variables like %TIME% are expanded into literal values when the script/command is initially parsed, and unless they are modified in the script, the same literal value will be used both times the variable is evaluated, so what you are really executing is

echo "Tue 11/18/2025" "16:42:51.15" & timeout 5 & echo "Tue 11/18/2025" "16:42:51.15"

if you want the %TIME% to reference the actual current time on the system, you must "delay variable expansion" until the variable is used. This is generally achieved by setting setlocal enabledelayedexpansion prior to evaluating the variable, and "endlocal" when you are done. Also note that for delayed evaluation to work properly you must reference the variable with !varname!instead of %varname% and is only supported in batch scripts.

This works when executed in a batch file:

setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
echo !DATE! !TIME! & timeout 5 & echo !DATE! !TIME!
endlocal

Presumably you are asking how to gather execution time metrics because you are working on an existing CMD batch-based product, but if you have the option, consider another shell to target. Powershell has shipped by default on every (even close to) currently supported version of windows, so there is broad compatibility for powershell scripts across windows devices.

Set your environment as so:
set prompt=$T$H$H$H$H$H$H$S%computername%\%username%$S$M$P$+$G

(remove all $H for hundredths of seconds or use fewer $H to reveal seconds set prompt=$T$H$H$H$S%computername%\%username%$S$M$P$+$G)

precede your command with an echo %time% as in echo %time% & (your command)

You will see who ran the command on which computer, when it started and when it finished.

This answer may require scrolling up through the terminal history to see all the output, or capture/pipe output to a log file if it writes more than the buffer.
If you need duration, subtract the stop and start times

Source: GitHub Gist Prompt.txt

Sample

 9:29 MyPC-11(Admin) C:\Users\me>set prompt=$T$S%computername%\%username%$S$M$P$+$G

 9:30:13.05 MyPC-11\me C:\Users\me>echo %time% & ping -n 12 -w 2500 example.com
 9:31:57.25

Pinging example.com [2600:1408:ec00:36::2738:7d2a] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 2600:1408:ec00:36::2738:7d2a: time=46ms
---8<--- cut
Reply from 2600:1408:ec00:36::2738:7d2a: time=66ms

Ping statistics for 2600:1408:ec00:36::2738:7d2a:
    Packets: Sent = 12, Received = 12, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 46ms, Maximum = 71ms, Average = 56ms

 9:32:08.57 MyPC-11\me C:\Users\me>

In a command line:

echo %DATE% %TIME% & timeout 1 & call echo ^%DATE^% ^%TIME^%

In a script:

echo %DATE% %TIME% & timeout 1 & call echo %%DATE%% %%TIME%%

A solution that calculates how long the command ran, using set /A , substring extraction with ~ and mitigation against leading space in the number of hours.

set "START=!TIME!" & timeout 5 > nul & set "END=!TIME!"
set /A DURATION=(1!END:~0,2!-1!START:~0,2!)*3600 + (!END:~3,2!-!START:~3,2!)*60 + (!END:~6,2!-!START:~6,2!)
echo Command took !DURATION! seconds

Either run inside an interactive cmd /V:ON session or behind setlocal enabledelayedexpansion inside a .bat file.

It assumes the command doesn't run over midnight, if that's a concern add if !DURATION! LSS 0 set /A DURATION_S+=86400.