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Basetime

UTC offsets — every one in use, right now

37 different offsets are in use on Earth at this moment, from UTC−11:00 to UTC+14:00. That is 25 hours between the ends of the world, not 24, which is why there is never a moment when everyone shares a calendar date. 11 of those offsets are not a whole number of hours and 3 are quarter-hour offsets. Every figure here is read from the timezone database.

Times shown from the last build until your clock is read. 39 of 39 offsets.

The whole day, at once

Read down the ladder and you are reading around the planet. Every rung is the same instant seen from a different clock, so the times climb by an hour a step until they roll past midnight and start the next date. That roll is the interesting part: at any moment two calendar dates are in use on Earth, and for about two hours either side of midnight in London there are three.

The span is 25 hours rather than 24 because the date line bends. Kiribati moved itself to the western side of it in 1995 so that the whole country would share a date, which put its eastern islands at UTC+14 — the first place on Earth to see any given morning. At the other end, Baker and Howland Islands sit at UTC−12, twenty-six hours behind. Between those two ends there is no instant when the world agrees what day it is.

11 of the offsets in use are not whole hours. India runs half an hour off the grid so one zone can serve a country spanning nearly 30 degrees of longitude; Nepal went 45 minutes off partly to sit closer to solar noon in Kathmandu and partly to be distinct from India. Those quarter-hour offsets are the ones that quietly break software, because a great deal of code assumes an offset divides evenly into hours and works perfectly until someone in Kathmandu opens it.

The filter marked working hours now is the practical use of this page. It leaves only the offsets where the local clock is between nine and five, which is the set of places you could plausibly call this minute. Turned around, night now is the set you should not. Neither is a fact about time zones so much as a fact about whose morning it currently is — and that is the only version of a world clock that answers a question anybody actually has.

How to use this
  1. Every time on the ladder is live and computed from your device's clock, so the whole page stays right without reloading.
  2. Your own offset is marked once the page has read your clock.
  3. Search by a city, a zone name or the offset itself — “Tokyo”, “Chatham” and “+05:30” all work.

Worth knowing: Offsets move with the seasons: a zone listed here today may be one rung up in July. For anything that has to survive a clock change, use the zone name rather than the number.

FAQ

How many UTC offsets are there?

37 are in use right now, and a few more appear seasonally when clocks change. They run from UTC−11:00 to UTC+14:00, a span of 25 hours.

Why is the world more than 24 hours wide?

Because the date line is not a straight line. Kiribati moved itself east of it in 1995 so the country would share a calendar date, which put its far islands at UTC+14, while Baker and Howland Islands sit at UTC−12. The 25-hour span means at least two calendar dates are always in use, and three for about two hours either side of midnight in London.

What is the difference between an offset and a time zone?

An offset is a number that is true at one instant. A time zone is a set of rules that is true all year, including when the clocks change and by how much. Two places can share an offset today and differ by an hour next month, which is why software should store the zone name and never the offset.

Which offsets are not whole hours?

11 of them today, and 3 of those are 45 minutes off the hour — Nepal and the Chatham Islands being the well-known cases. They are the offsets that break code written on the assumption that an offset divides evenly into hours.