New Delhi Time Now

What this page shows

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

New Delhi does not change its clocks

Here is the part worth knowing about New Delhi time, and it makes things easy. India does not use daylight saving. There is no spring forward and no fall back, so New Delhi 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 here. Whenever you look, New Delhi 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 New Delhi is in

New Delhi runs on India Standard Time, five and a half hours ahead of UTC, and it holds that offset every day of the year. As the capital, it keeps the clock that the whole of India keeps, since the entire country, a vast east-to-west span, runs on this single zone.

That one-clock-for-everyone choice has a visible effect. Because India is so wide, the sun comes up much earlier in the far east of the country than it does in Delhi or the west, yet the clock reads the same everywhere. The gap is wide enough that in parts of the northeast, like the tea-growing districts of Assam, many estates have long kept their own informal working time, an hour ahead of the official clock, so that the workday better matches the early sunrise. The official time, though, is the same India Standard Time right across the country.

Time difference from New Delhi to other cities

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

A few quick examples

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

Say it is 12 noon in New Delhi. Kathmandu, just to the north, is fifteen minutes ahead at 12:15, and Singapore is two and a half hours ahead at 2:30 in the afternoon. Dubai 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 New Delhi, 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 New Delhi time

New Delhi sits at about 29 degrees north, so the length of the day swings a fair amount across the year. Around midsummer there are roughly fourteen hours between sunrise and sunset, while around midwinter that drops to a little over ten, with the short, hazy days of the northern Indian winter.

On the clock-against-sun question, New Delhi runs a little behind the sun. India Standard Time is built on a meridian in the centre of the country, near 82 and a half degrees east, and Delhi 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 here in the north, and a steady one, since the clock never shifts.

Other places on the same time

The whole of India keeps the same time as New Delhi on UTC plus 5:30. Here are some to jump to:

• Mumbai time now, on the same clock
• Bangalore time now, on the same clock
• India time now, the country as a whole

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

Questions people ask

What time is it in New Delhi right now?

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

Does New Delhi change its clocks for daylight saving?

No. India does not use daylight saving anywhere, so New Delhi keeps India Standard Time, UTC plus 5:30, all year with no seasonal change.

What is the time difference between New Delhi and Kathmandu?

Nepal is fifteen minutes ahead of India, so when it is 12 noon in New Delhi, it is 12:15 in Kathmandu, all year.

What time zone is New Delhi in?

India Standard Time, five and a half hours ahead of UTC, held all year. It is the single clock used across the whole of India.

What is the time difference between New Delhi and New York?

New York is normally ten and a half hours behind New Delhi, 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 New Delhi 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