How often does the earth rotate on its axis?

A complete rotation of the earth on its axis takes approximately 23 hours, 56 minutes and four seconds with respect to the background stars. However, the sun returns to the same place in the sky (correcting for seasonal differences) every 24 hours. read more

Earth's rotation period relative to the fixed stars, called its stellar day by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS), is 86,164.098 903 691 seconds of mean solar time (UT1) (23 h 56 m 4.098 903 691 s, 0.997 269 663 237 16 mean solar days). read more