Beijing Time Now

What this page shows

So you want to know what time it is in Beijing right now. Maybe you have a call with someone in China, a flight to catch, a market open to track, or someone to reach before their evening is over. That is what the clock at the top of this page is for. It shows the current time in Beijing and ticks forward every second, so there is nothing for you to work out by hand.

Wherever in the world you are reading this from, the clock tracks Beijing and keeps itself right on its own. And Beijing time is simple, because it never changes through the year, as the next section explains.

Beijing does not change its clocks

Here is the part worth knowing about Beijing time, and it makes things easy. China does not use daylight saving. There is no spring forward and no fall back, so Beijing stays on the same clock all year round, China Standard Time, eight hours ahead of UTC.

China did try daylight saving for a few years in the late 1980s, but it was dropped in the early 1990s and has never returned. So there are no change dates to track here. Whenever you look, Beijing is at UTC plus 8, and the clock above simply shows that time.

What time zone Beijing is in

Beijing runs on China Standard Time, eight hours ahead of UTC, held every day of the year. The striking thing is that this is not just Beijing's clock, it is the whole country's. All of China, from the east coast to the far western borders, keeps this single time, which is often simply called Beijing time.

Beijing sits in the east of the country, close to the line of longitude China Standard Time naturally fits, so here the clock and the sun stay reasonably in step. The same is not true thousands of kilometres to the west, where the official clock runs far ahead of the sun, a point the section on China as a whole brings out. For Beijing itself, though, the offset is a comfortable one.

Time difference from Beijing to other cities

Beijing never changes its clocks, so the gap to other fixed-offset places stays the same all year. The places that do use daylight saving, like London and New York, shift by an hour against Beijing between their winter and summer. Here is the quick reference, assuming it is 12 noon in Beijing.

A few quick examples

Let us run a few, so you can see how this works.

Say it is 12 noon in Beijing. Tokyo and Seoul are an hour ahead at 1 in the afternoon, while Singapore reads the same, 12 noon, since it shares the offset. Mumbai is two and a half hours behind at 9:30 in the morning.

Now the long hauls west. In the winter, London is eight hours behind Beijing, so 12 noon here is 4 in the morning in London, and New York, thirteen hours behind, is still at 11 the previous evening. Midday in Beijing lands in the small hours across Europe and the Americas.

Because those places use daylight saving and China does not, the gap shifts by an hour in their summer. London moves to seven hours behind and New York to twelve. So for a call that has to land just right, check the live clock rather than the rule of thumb.

A couple of things about Beijing time

Beijing sits at about 40 degrees north, so the length of the day swings a fair amount across the year. Around midsummer there are roughly fifteen hours between sunrise and sunset, while around midwinter that drops to a little over nine hours. With no daylight saving, summer dawns come early, the light arriving well before 5 in the morning.

On the clock-against-sun question, Beijing is a reasonable match. The city sits a little west of the 120 degree east line that China Standard Time fits most naturally, so the sun reaches its highest only a little after 12 noon by the clock, at around quarter past twelve in the middle of the year. That comfortable fit is part of why the capital makes a sensible anchor for the national clock, even though the same clock stretches far less comfortably to the west.

Other places on the same time

A few places keep the same time as Beijing, or close to it. Here are some to jump to:

• China time now, the country as a whole
• Singapore time now, on the same offset
• Tokyo time now, an hour ahead

And if it is the global reference Beijing is measured from that you are after, see UTC Time Now.

Questions people ask

What time is it in Beijing right now?

The clock near the top of this page is the answer, and it updates every second. China does not use daylight saving, so Beijing stays on the same time all year, and the time shown is always correct.

Does Beijing change its clocks for daylight saving?

No. China tried it for a few years in the late 1980s and dropped it in the early 1990s. Beijing has stayed on China Standard Time, UTC plus 8, ever since, with no seasonal change.

Is Beijing time the same across all of China?

Yes. The whole country runs on Beijing time, China Standard Time at UTC plus 8, from the east coast to the far western borders, even though that is a very wide span of longitude.

What time zone is Beijing in?

China Standard Time, eight hours ahead of UTC, held all year. It is the single clock used across the whole of China.

What is the time difference between Beijing and New York?

New York is normally thirteen hours behind Beijing, or twelve when New York is on summer time. The gap shifts because New York uses daylight saving and China does not.

What is the IANA name for Beijing time?

It is Asia/Shanghai in the IANA time zone database, the time data your phone and your computer use. That single identifier covers the whole country, and it is what drives the live clock on this page.

References

1. Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Time Zone Database (the tz database), home of the Asia/Shanghai identifier used across China. https://www.iana.org/time-zones
2. National Time Service Center (NTSC), Chinese Academy of Sciences, which generates and keeps China's standard time. https://www.ntsc.ac.cn
3. Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM), Time Department, which maintains Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the reference China Standard Time is measured from. https://www.bipm.org/en/work-programme/time