India Time Now

What this page shows

So you want to know what time it is in India right now. Maybe you have a call with someone there, 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 India and ticks forward every second, so there is nothing for you to work out by hand.

India keeps a single time zone across the whole country, so this clock is good everywhere, from the deserts of the west to the hills of the northeast and the southern coast. Wherever in the world you are reading from, it keeps itself right on its own, and it is simple, because India time never changes through the year.

India does not change its clocks

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

So there are no change dates to track. Whenever you look, India is at UTC plus 5:30, and the clock above simply shows that time. The half-hour offset is the part that catches people out, since most of the world runs on whole hours, but it never shifts with the seasons.

What time zone India is in

India runs on India Standard Time, five and a half hours ahead of UTC, the single clock used across the whole country, set by a meridian at 82 and a half degrees east near the centre of the land. With more than a billion people on it, this is one of the most populous time zones in the world, all keeping a common hour.

That one clock covers a very wide country, and the consequence shows at the edges. The sun rises in the far northeast nearly two hours before it does in the far west, in real terms, yet both read the same time. In the eastern states the sun is well up by 5 in the morning in summer and gone early in the evening, which has fed a long-running debate about whether India should adopt a second time zone, especially for the northeast, where the early light and early dark sit awkwardly with the national clock. For now, India keeps the single zone, prizing the simplicity of one time for the whole country.

Time difference from India to other places

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

A few quick examples

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

Say it is 12 noon in India. Kathmandu is fifteen minutes ahead at 12:15, and Singapore is two and a half hours ahead at 2:30 in the afternoon. Dubai, with its large Indian community, is an hour and a half behind at 10:30 in the morning.

Now the long hauls west. In the winter, London is five and a half hours behind India, so 12 noon here is half past six in the morning in London, and New York, ten and a half hours behind, is at half past one in the morning. The half-hour offset is why these land on a thirty rather than on the hour.

Because those places use daylight saving and India does not, the gap shifts by an hour in their summer. London moves to four and a half hours behind and New York to nine and a half. 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 India time

India runs a long way north to south and east to west, from about 8 degrees north at the southern tip up to 37 in the far north. So the length of the day varies with where you are: the south, near the tropics, has a gentle swing of around eleven to thirteen hours, while the north sees a wider one, with longer summer days and shorter winter ones. The single clock holds for all of it.

On the clock-against-sun question, the fit depends entirely on where you stand. The meridian India Standard Time is built on runs through the centre-east of the country, near states like Uttar Pradesh, where the clock and the sun sit closely together. To the west, in Mumbai or Gujarat, the sun runs well behind the clock, while in the far east it runs ahead of it. One national time, a whole range of relationships to the sun.

Other places on the same time

Every Indian city keeps this same clock, UTC plus 5:30. Here are some to jump to:

• New Delhi time now, the capital
• Mumbai time now, the financial hub
• Bangalore time now, the technology hub

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

Questions people ask

What time is it in India right now?

The clock near the top of this page is the answer, and it updates every second. India keeps one time zone and does not use daylight saving, so the time shown is always correct, anywhere in the country.

Does India use daylight saving time?

No. India keeps India Standard Time, UTC plus 5:30, all year, with no spring forward or fall back anywhere in the country.

Does all of India have the same time?

Yes. The whole country runs on a single zone, India Standard Time, even though it is wide enough that the sun rises nearly two hours earlier in the far east than in the far west. There is a long-running debate about a second zone, but for now there is just one.

What time zone is India in?

India Standard Time, five and a half hours ahead of UTC, held all year and used across the whole country. It is set by a meridian near 82 and a half degrees east.

What is the time difference between India and New York?

New York is normally ten and a half hours behind India, or nine and a half when New York is on summer time. The gap shifts because New York uses daylight saving and India does not.

What is the IANA name for India time?

It is Asia/Kolkata in the IANA time zone database, the time data your phone and your computer use. That single identifier covers the whole country at UTC plus 5:30, 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/Kolkata identifier used across India. https://www.iana.org/time-zones
2. CSIR-National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL), India, which keeps and disseminates Indian Standard Time. https://www.nplindia.org
3. Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM), Time Department, which maintains Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the reference India Standard Time is measured from. https://www.bipm.org/en/work-programme/time