Japan Time Now

What this page shows

So you want to know what time it is in Japan 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 Japan and ticks forward every second, so there is nothing for you to work out by hand.

Japan keeps a single time zone across the whole country, so this clock is good from Sapporo in the north to Okinawa in the south. Wherever in the world you are reading from, it keeps itself right on its own, and it is simple, because Japan time never changes through the year.

Japan does not change its clocks

Here is the part worth knowing about Japan time, and it makes things easy. Japan 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, Japan Standard Time, JST, nine hours ahead of UTC.

Japan did try daylight saving once, briefly, in the years just after the Second World War, but it was dropped in the early 1950s and has never returned. So unlike Europe or North America, there are no change dates to track. Whenever you look, Japan is at UTC plus 9, and the clock above simply shows that time.

What time zone Japan is in

Japan runs on Japan Standard Time, nine hours ahead of UTC, held every day of the year. The whole country keeps this one clock, from the northern island of Hokkaido down through the main islands to the Okinawa chain in the far south, a span wide enough that some countries would split it into more than one zone.

That single clock has a precise anchor. Japan Standard Time is set by the meridian at 135 degrees east, which passes through the city of Akashi, near Kobe, in the west of the country. Akashi is well known in Japan as the home of the standard meridian, and the clock the whole nation keeps is built around that line.

Time difference from Japan to other places

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

A few quick examples

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

Say it is 12 noon in Japan. Seoul reads the same, 12 noon, since Korea shares the offset, and Beijing is an hour behind at 11 in the morning. Mumbai is three and a half hours behind at 8:30 in the morning.

Now the long hauls west. In the winter, London is nine hours behind Japan, so 12 noon here is 3 in the morning in London, and New York, fourteen hours behind, is still at 10 the previous evening. This is the catch with Japan: the gap is so wide that midday here lands in the middle of the night across Europe and the Americas.

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

Japan runs a long way north to south, from about 24 degrees at Okinawa up to 45 at the top of Hokkaido, so the length of the day varies with where you are. Tokyo, near the middle, swings from roughly fourteen and a half hours of daylight in summer to under ten in winter. The north sees a sharper change, the southern islands a gentler one. With no daylight saving, summer dawns come early across the country, often before 5 in the morning.

On the clock-against-sun question, the country sits close to its standard meridian. Akashi, on the 135 degree line, has the sun at its highest almost exactly at 12 noon by the clock. Places east of there, like Tokyo, see the sun peak a little before noon, while places to the west, like Fukuoka, see it a little after. It is a small spread, and a steady one, since the clock never shifts.

Other places on the same time

A few places keep the same time as Japan, or close to it. Here are some to jump to:

• Seoul time now, on the same offset
• Tokyo time now, the capital
• Beijing time now, an hour behind

And if it is the time zone itself you are reading up on rather than the country, see JST Time Now, with the global reference it is measured from at UTC Time Now.

Questions people ask

What time is it in Japan right now?

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

Does Japan use daylight saving time?

No. Japan tried it briefly after the Second World War and dropped it in the early 1950s. The country has stayed on Japan Standard Time, UTC plus 9, ever since, with no seasonal change.

Does all of Japan have the same time?

Yes. The whole country keeps a single zone, Japan Standard Time, from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south.

What time zone is Japan in?

Japan Standard Time, nine hours ahead of UTC, held all year. It is set by the 135 degree east meridian, which passes through Akashi near Kobe.

What is the time difference between Japan and New York?

New York is normally fourteen hours behind Japan, or thirteen when New York is on summer time. The gap shifts because New York uses daylight saving and Japan does not.

What is the IANA name for Japan time?

It is Asia/Tokyo in the IANA time zone database, the time data your phone and your computer use. It holds a steady UTC plus 9, 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/Tokyo identifier used across Japan. https://www.iana.org/time-zones
2. National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), which generates and keeps Japan Standard Time. https://www.nict.go.jp
3. Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM), Time Department, which maintains Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the reference Japan Standard Time is measured from. https://www.bipm.org/en/work-programme/time