IST 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 the office in Bangalore, family in Delhi to ring, a cricket match starting on Indian time, or a delivery window someone quoted you in IST. That is what the clock at the top of this page is for. It shows the current India Standard Time 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 reads India Standard Time and, as the sections below explain, it does not shuffle around with the seasons the way a lot of clocks do.

IST is used for three different zones

Here is the part that trips people up, though. IST is not just one zone. The same three letters are used for three different times around the world:

• India Standard Time, five and a half hours ahead of UTC. This is the one this page shows.
• Irish Standard Time, one hour ahead of UTC, which is Ireland's summer time.
• Israel Standard Time, two hours ahead of UTC.

So if someone hands you a time in IST, it is worth a second's thought about which country they mean. On this page, IST always means India, at UTC plus 5:30.

What IST actually is

IST stands for India Standard Time, and it sits five and a half hours ahead of UTC, written as UTC plus 5:30. That half hour is unusual. Most zones are a whole number of hours from UTC, but India settled on a single offset of five and a half hours, measured from a meridian that runs near the town of Mirzapur.

The striking thing about it is that the whole of India runs on this one time. From Gujarat in the west to Arunachal Pradesh in the east the country spans close to two hours of natural daylight, yet every clock reads the same IST. Sri Lanka keeps the same offset too. Nepal, just to the north, is the odd one out, sitting fifteen minutes further ahead at UTC plus 5:45.

Does IST change for daylight saving?

India does not use daylight saving time. It never moves its clocks, so IST stays at UTC plus 5:30 all year, summer and winter alike. The country tried daylight saving only briefly, around wartime, and has not used it since.

That makes IST one of the easier zones to plan around, because it is a fixed point. The catch, if there is one, is on the other end of your call. Places like the UK, Europe, and the US do change their clocks, so the gap between them and India shifts by an hour when those countries move on and off daylight saving. This page holds the steady IST reference, and the table below shows how it lines up.

Converting IST to other time zones

IST sits five and a half hours ahead of UTC and stays there all year. The gaps to other places that do not change their clocks, like Japan, hold steady too. The ones that move are the countries that run daylight saving, so a couple of the rows below shift by an hour 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 Mumbai, on India Standard Time. Japan is three and a half hours ahead, so it is 3:30 in the afternoon in Tokyo. The UK, in its winter, is five and a half hours behind, making it 6:30 in the morning in London. Come the British summer, London moves an hour forward, so the same noon in Mumbai is 7:30 in the morning there instead.

Now a call to New York. In the US winter, New York is ten and a half hours behind India, so 12 noon in Delhi is 1:30 in the morning there. The middle of the Indian working day lands in the small hours of the American one, which is the usual headache for teams split between India and the US.

One last point, the fifteen minute gap with Nepal. When it is 12 noon in India, it is 12:15 in the afternoon in Kathmandu. Small, but enough to catch you out on a tight schedule.

Where India Standard Time is used

India Standard Time covers the whole of India, every state and city on the one clock. That includes Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, and Hyderabad. Sri Lanka uses the same offset of UTC plus 5:30, so the two keep the same time.

Nepal sits fifteen minutes ahead at UTC plus 5:45, and Pakistan to the west is an hour behind India at UTC plus 5. None of these countries use daylight saving, so all of these gaps hold steady through the year.

Cities on India Standard Time

If you want the live clock for a particular Indian city rather than the country as a whole, here are a few to jump to:

• New Delhi time now
• Mumbai time now
• Bangalore time now

For the country-wide view, see India time now. And just to the north, on its own clock fifteen minutes different, there is Kathmandu time now.

Questions people ask

What time is it in IST right now?

The clock near the top of this page is the answer, and it updates every second. IST sits at UTC plus 5:30 and does not change for daylight saving, so it reads the same steady India time all year round.

What does IST stand for?

It depends on the country. Most often it means India Standard Time at UTC plus 5:30. It is also used for Irish Standard Time at UTC plus 1 and Israel Standard Time at UTC plus 2. This page shows India.

How many hours ahead of UTC is IST?

Five and a half hours ahead, written UTC plus 5:30. That offset stays the same all year, since India does not observe daylight saving.

Does India use daylight saving time?

No. India keeps a single fixed time year-round and does not move its clocks. The country used daylight saving only briefly in the past and dropped it.

Why is IST a half hour offset?

India chose a single national time set five and a half hours ahead of UTC, based on a meridian running through the middle of the country near Mirzapur. A whole-hour offset would have sat further to one side of the country, so the half hour was a compromise for a land that wide.

What is IST in US Eastern time?

India is ten and a half hours ahead of US Eastern in the American winter and nine and a half hours ahead in summer, since the US changes its clocks and India does not. So 12 noon in India is around 1:30 in the morning in New York in winter.

What is the IANA name for India Standard Time?

It is Asia/Kolkata in the IANA time zone database, the time data your phone and your computer use. It holds the fixed UTC plus 5:30 offset and 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. https://www.iana.org/time-zones
2. CSIR-National Physical Laboratory (NPL India), New Delhi, the body that generates and maintains 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 IST is measured from. https://www.bipm.org/en/work-programme/time