California Time Now

What this page shows

So you want to know what time it is in California right now. Maybe you have a call with someone in the state, a flight to catch, a game starting on local time, 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 California and ticks forward every second, so there is nothing for you to work out by hand.

California keeps a single time zone, so this clock is good for the whole state, from San Diego to the Oregon border. Wherever in the world you are reading from, it keeps itself right on its own, even across the days when the clocks change.

California changes its clocks twice a year

Here is the part worth knowing about California time. The state does not stay on the same clock all year. It uses Pacific Standard Time, PST, through the winter, and moves an hour ahead to Pacific Daylight Time, PDT, for the summer.

So there are two settings behind California time:

• PST, Pacific Standard Time. Eight hours behind UTC, written UTC minus 8. The winter setting, from early November to early March.
• PDT, Pacific Daylight Time. Seven hours behind UTC, written UTC minus 7. The summer setting, from early March to early November.

The clock above follows whichever one is in force, so you do not have to track it yourself. The section further down spells out the dates if you ever need to work it out for a particular day.

What time zone California is in

California runs on Pacific Time, a single zone for the whole state, eight hours behind UTC in winter and seven hours behind in summer. It takes in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Sacramento, and as the most populous state in the country, a large share of the American West runs on its clock.

One thing worth knowing is that California has tried to step off the seasonal clock change altogether. In 2018, voters passed a measure to move the state toward year-round daylight saving time, which would end the spring and autumn switches for good. The catch is that such a change needs approval from the federal government, and that has not come. So for now, California still springs forward and falls back like the rest of the country.

How to tell if California is on PST or PDT right now

California changes its clocks on two Sundays a year, and the dates are set in US law, the Uniform Time Act, last amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. They are different from the European dates, landing a little wider on each side:

• Spring forward. On the second Sunday of March, at 2 in the morning, the clocks jump ahead one hour. PST becomes PDT, and California goes from UTC minus 8 to UTC minus 7.
• Fall back. On the first Sunday of November, at 2 in the morning, the clocks drop back one hour. PDT becomes PST again, at UTC minus 8.

So the rule is short. From the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November, California is on PDT. The rest of the year, early November round to early March, it is on PST. Place today between those two Sundays and you have your answer.

Time difference from California to other places

The places that share North America's daylight saving schedule stay a fixed distance from California all year, while the ones on different schedules can shift by an hour at the edges of the seasons. Here is the quick reference, assuming it is 12 noon in California.

A few quick examples

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

Say it is 12 noon in California. New York is three hours ahead all year, so 3 in the afternoon on the East Coast. In the winter, London is eight hours ahead, making it 8 in the evening there, while UTC is eight hours ahead at 8 in the evening as well.

Now a call to London, which has one small catch. The US and the UK both change their clocks, but not on the same dates, so for a couple of short windows in spring and autumn the usual eight hour gap briefly shifts by an hour. For anything that has to land exactly in those weeks, trust the live clock over the rule of thumb.

And one for Asia, which is the real challenge. Tokyo is seventeen hours ahead of California in winter, so 12 noon here is 5 in the morning the next day in Tokyo. There is no shared working hour at all, so calls between the West Coast and Japan land in the early morning or late evening for one side.

A couple of things about California time

California runs a long way north to south, from about 32 degrees at the Mexican border up to 42 at the Oregon line, so the length of the day varies with where you are. The far south, around San Diego, has a gentle swing, from roughly ten hours of daylight in winter to fourteen in summer. The north of the state sees a sharper change, with longer summer evenings and shorter winter afternoons.

On the clock-against-sun question, California sits close to the meridian Pacific Standard Time is built on, with Los Angeles almost exactly on it and the north of the state a little to the west. So in winter the sun is at its highest near 12 noon by the clock, give or take. In summer, on PDT, the clock runs an hour ahead of the sun, like the rest of the country.

Other places on the same time

Plenty of places keep the same time as California on Pacific Time. Here are a few to jump to:

• Los Angeles time now
• San Francisco time now
• Seattle time now

And if it is the time zone itself you are reading up on rather than the state, the standard side is at PST Time Now, and the global reference it is measured from at UTC Time Now.

Questions people ask

What time is it in California right now?

The clock near the top of this page is the answer, and it updates every second. California keeps one time zone throughout. It changes its clocks, so it reads PST in winter and PDT in summer, and either way the time shown is correct.

Is California on PST or PDT right now?

Go by the dates. California is on PDT from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November. The rest of the year, from early November round to early March, it is on PST. Find where today falls between those two Sundays and you will know.

Did California stop changing its clocks?

Not yet. Voters approved a move toward year-round daylight saving time in 2018, but it needs federal approval that has not come. So for now California still springs forward and falls back like the rest of the country.

What time zone is California in?

Pacific Time, eight hours behind UTC in winter and seven hours behind in summer. The whole state keeps the same clock, the same one as Oregon, Washington, and Nevada.

How many hours behind New York is California?

Three hours behind, all year. Both change their clocks on the same dates, so the three hour gap between the coasts never changes.

What is the IANA name for California time?

It is America/Los_Angeles in the IANA time zone database, the time data your phone and your computer use. The whole US Pacific zone runs on this identifier, 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 America/Los_Angeles identifier. https://www.iana.org/time-zones
2. U.S. Code, Title 15, Section 260a: the Uniform Time Act of 1966, as amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which sets the daylight saving dates. Office of the Law Revision Counsel. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title15-section260a
3. U.S. Department of Transportation, Standard Time Zone Boundaries under 49 CFR Part 71. https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/time-act
4. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Time and Frequency Division, the source of official time for the United States. https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division