Germany Time Now

What this page shows

So you want to know what time it is in Germany right now. Maybe you have a call with someone there, a flight to catch, a match kicking off on German 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 Germany and ticks forward every second, so there is nothing for you to work out by hand.

Germany keeps a single time zone, so this clock is good for the whole country, from Hamburg to Munich. Wherever in the world you are reading from, it keeps itself right on its own, even across the days when the clocks change.

Germany changes its clocks twice a year

Here is the part worth knowing about German time. Germany does not stay on the same clock all year. It uses Central European Time, CET, through the winter, and moves an hour ahead to Central European Summer Time, CEST, for the summer.

So there are two settings behind German time:

• CET, Central European Time. One hour ahead of UTC, written UTC plus 1. The winter setting, from late October to late March.
• CEST, Central European Summer Time. Two hours ahead of UTC, written UTC plus 2. The summer setting, from late March to late October.

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 Germany is in

Germany runs on Central European Time, a single zone for the whole country, one hour ahead of UTC in winter and two hours ahead in summer. It is the most populous country in this zone, sharing the same clock with neighbours from France to Poland.

Germany also keeps the time for the zone in a very practical sense. The national metrology institute, the PTB, maintains Germany's legal time on its atomic clocks, and a longwave radio signal broadcast from Mainflingen, near Frankfurt, carries that time across much of the continent. Radio-controlled clocks set themselves from it automatically over a radius of around two thousand kilometres. So German time quietly keeps a good part of Europe's clocks in sync, without most people ever noticing.

How to tell if Germany is on CET or CEST right now

Germany changes its clocks on two Sundays a year, and across the European Union those dates are fixed by law, Directive 2000/84/EC on summer-time arrangements. Every member state changes together:

• Spring forward. On the last Sunday of March, the clocks jump ahead one hour. CET becomes CEST, and Germany goes from UTC plus 1 to UTC plus 2.
• Fall back. On the last Sunday of October, the clocks drop back one hour. CEST becomes CET again, at UTC plus 1.

So the rule is short. From the last Sunday of March to the last Sunday of October, Germany is on CEST. The rest of the year, late October round to late March, it is on CET. Place today between those two Sundays and you have your answer.

Time difference from Germany to other places

The places that share Europe's daylight saving schedule stay a fixed distance from Germany all year, while the ones that do not change their clocks can shift by an hour between the German winter and summer. Here is the quick reference, assuming it is 12 noon in Germany.

A few quick examples

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

Say it is 12 noon in Germany. London is an hour behind all year, so 11 in the morning there. In the winter, New York is six hours behind, making it 6 in the morning on the US East Coast, while Mumbai is four and a half hours ahead at 4:30 in the afternoon.

Now a call to New York, which has one small catch. Germany and the US both change their clocks, but not on the same dates, so for a couple of short windows in spring and autumn the usual six hour gap briefly narrows to five. For anything that has to land exactly in those weeks, trust the live clock over the rule of thumb.

And one for Asia. Tokyo is eight hours ahead of Germany in winter, so a 9 in the morning start here is already 5 in the evening in Tokyo. The overlap between Germany and Japan is narrow, so those calls tend to sit early in the German morning.

A couple of things about German time

Germany stretches across a fair range of latitude, from around 47 degrees north in Bavaria up past 54 in the north, so the length of the day varies with where you are. The far north sees nearly seventeen hours of daylight at midsummer and under eight in deep winter, a sharper swing than the south, where the seasons sit a little more evenly.

On the clock-against-sun question, Germany comes out fairly honest. Most of the country sits close to or just west of the meridian Central European Time is built on, so in winter the sun is at its highest near 12 noon by the clock, give or take. The long, light summer evenings come mostly from the high latitude rather than the clock running ahead.

Other places on the same time

Plenty of cities keep the same time as Germany on Central European Time. Here are a few to jump to:

• Berlin time now
• Frankfurt time now
• Vienna time now
• Zurich time now

Neighbouring France keeps the same clock too. And if it is the time zone itself you are reading up on rather than the country, the summer side is at CEST Time Now, and the global reference it is measured from at UTC Time Now.

Questions people ask

What time is it in Germany right now?

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

Is Germany on CET or CEST right now?

Go by the dates. Germany is on CEST from the last Sunday of March to the last Sunday of October. The rest of the year, from late October round to late March, it is on CET. Find where today falls between those two Sundays and you will know.

Does Germany have more than one time zone?

No. The whole country keeps a single time zone, Central European Time, with no regional differences. From Hamburg in the north to Munich in the south, every clock reads the same.

What time zone is Germany in?

Central European Time, one hour ahead of UTC in winter and two hours ahead in summer. It is the same zone as France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and much of the rest of mainland Europe.

How many hours ahead of the UK is Germany?

One hour ahead, all year. Germany and the UK both change their clocks, but on the same dates, so the one hour gap between them never changes.

What is the IANA name for German time?

It is Europe/Berlin in the IANA time zone database, the time data your phone and your computer use. Germany runs on a single identifier for 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 Europe/Berlin identifier. https://www.iana.org/time-zones
2. Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Germany's national metrology institute and the keeper of legal time, broadcast across Europe by the DCF77 signal. https://www.ptb.de
3. Directive 2000/84/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on summer-time arrangements, which sets the last Sundays of March and October as the change dates across the EU. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2000/84/oj