Dubai Time Now

What this page shows

So you want to know what time it is in Dubai right now. Maybe you have a call with someone in the UAE, a flight to catch or connect through, a match kicking off 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 Dubai 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 Dubai and keeps itself right on its own. And Dubai time is simple, because it never changes through the year, as the next section explains.

Dubai does not change its clocks

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

Sitting in the Gulf, where daylight changes little through the year, the country has no real reason to shift its clocks for the seasons. So there are no change dates to track here. Whenever you look, Dubai is at UTC plus 4, and the clock above simply shows that time.

What time zone Dubai is in

Dubai runs on Gulf Standard Time, four hours ahead of UTC, held every day of the year. It keeps the same clock as the rest of the UAE and as Oman next door.

That offset, four hours ahead of UTC, places Dubai neatly between the world's two busiest stretches of zones. It is mid-morning in Europe and late afternoon in East Asia when it is noon in Dubai, which puts the city within a normal working day of both. For one of the world's great aviation and business hubs, with an airport among the busiest anywhere, sitting at that midpoint on the clock is part of what makes Dubai such a natural meeting point between East and West, the place a London morning and a Singapore afternoon can comfortably overlap.

Time difference from Dubai to other cities

Dubai 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 Dubai between their winter and summer. Here is the quick reference, assuming it is 12 noon in Dubai.

A few quick examples

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

Say it is 12 noon in Dubai. Doha is an hour behind at 11 in the morning, while Mumbai is an hour and a half ahead at 1:30 in the afternoon. Singapore is four hours ahead at 4 in the afternoon, so an early Dubai afternoon still catches the Singapore working day.

Now the hauls west. In the winter, London is four hours behind Dubai, so 12 noon here is 8 in the morning in London, just as the London day is starting. New York, nine hours behind, is at 3 in the morning, so the Americas are out of reach until the Dubai afternoon.

Because those places use daylight saving and the UAE does not, the gap shifts by an hour in their summer. London moves to three hours behind and New York to eight. 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 Dubai time

Dubai sits at about 25 degrees north, well to the south, so the length of the day stays fairly even through the year. Around midsummer there are roughly thirteen and three quarter hours between sunrise and sunset, and around midwinter still a little over ten, a gentle swing suited to the desert, where the heat of the day matters more than its length.

On the clock-against-sun question, Dubai runs a little ahead of the sun. Gulf Standard Time fits the 60 degree east line, and Dubai sits some way west of it, so the sun reaches its highest a little after 12 noon by the clock, at around twenty past twelve in the middle of the year. It is a modest lean, and a steady one, since the clock never shifts.

Other places on the same time

A couple of places keep the same time as Dubai on UTC plus 4. Here are some to jump to:

• Abu Dhabi time now, on the same clock
• Qatar time now, an hour behind
• Mumbai time now, an hour and a half ahead

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

Questions people ask

What time is it in Dubai right now?

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

Does Dubai change its clocks for daylight saving?

No. The UAE does not use daylight saving, so Dubai keeps Gulf Standard Time, UTC plus 4, all year with no seasonal change.

What is the time difference between Dubai and London?

London is normally four hours behind Dubai, or three when London is on summer time. So a noon in Dubai is 8 in the morning in London in winter, and 9 in summer.

What time zone is Dubai in?

Gulf Standard Time, four hours ahead of UTC, held all year. It is the same clock as the rest of the UAE and as Oman.

What is the time difference between Dubai and Qatar?

Qatar is one hour behind the UAE, all year. So when it is 12 noon in Dubai, it is 11 in the morning in Doha.

What is the IANA name for Dubai time?

It is Asia/Dubai in the IANA time zone database, the time data your phone and your computer use. It covers the whole UAE at UTC plus 4, 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/Dubai identifier used across the UAE. https://www.iana.org/time-zones
2. Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM), Time Department, which maintains Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the reference Gulf Standard Time is measured from. https://www.bipm.org/en/work-programme/time
3. International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS), which governs UTC and the leap seconds that keep it aligned with the Earth's rotation. https://www.iers.org