Rome Time Now

What this page shows

So you want to know what time it is in Rome right now. Maybe you have a call with someone in Italy, 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 Rome 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 Rome and keeps itself right on its own, even across the days when the clocks change. Whether Rome is on its winter or its summer setting at the time, the clock shows the correct local time.

Rome changes its clocks twice a year

Here is the part worth knowing about Rome time. Rome 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 Rome 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 Rome is in

Rome runs on Central European Time, the same zone as Germany, France, and Spain, one hour ahead of UTC in winter and two hours ahead in summer. The whole of Italy keeps this one clock, the length of the boot from the Alps down to Sicily, and the small states tucked inside it, the Vatican and San Marino, keep Italian time too.

What is worth knowing about Rome is its position in the zone. Central European Time runs across a huge stretch of Europe, and Rome sits near its southern end, a good deal closer to the equator than Berlin or Oslo. So while Rome shares the exact same clock as those northern cities, its experience of daylight is quite different, gentler and more even through the year, as the next section on its facts spells out.

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

Rome 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 Rome 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, Rome 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 Rome to other cities

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

A few quick examples

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

Say it is 12 noon in Rome. 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. Italy 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 Rome in winter, so a 9 in the morning start in Rome is already 5 in the evening in Tokyo. The overlap between Italy and Japan is narrow, so those calls tend to sit early in the Rome morning.

A couple of things about Rome time

Rome sits at about 42 degrees north, much further south than the big northern European cities, so its day length swings far less across the year. Around midsummer there are roughly fifteen hours between sunrise and sunset, and around midwinter a little over nine, a gentle spread next to a city like Oslo, which runs from nearly nineteen hours down to about six. It is the same clock, a very different sun.

On the clock-against-sun question, Rome comes out close to honest. It sits only a little 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 ten minutes. In summer, on CEST, the clock runs an hour ahead of the sun, like the rest of the zone, which helps stretch the warm Mediterranean evenings.

Other places on the same time

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

• Paris time now
• Berlin time now
• Madrid time now
• Vienna time now

And if it is the time zone itself you are reading up on rather than the city, 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 Rome right now?

The clock near the top of this page is the answer, and it updates every second. Just remember that Rome changes its clocks, so it shows CET through the winter and CEST through the summer, switching over on its own. Either way, the time shown is the correct Rome time.

Is Rome on CET or CEST right now?

Go by the dates. Rome 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.

What time zone is Rome in?

Central European Time, one hour ahead of UTC, in the winter, and Central European Summer Time, two hours ahead, in the summer. The whole of Italy keeps the same clock, as do France, Germany, and Spain.

How many hours ahead of London is Rome?

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

What is the time difference between Rome and New York?

New York is normally six hours behind Rome. The two change their clocks on slightly different dates, so for a couple of short windows in spring and autumn the gap narrows to five hours.

What is the IANA name for Rome time?

It is Europe/Rome in the IANA time zone database, the time data your phone and your computer use. It carries both the CET and CEST offsets along with the rule for switching between them, 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/Rome identifier. https://www.iana.org/time-zones
2. 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
3. Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRIM), Italy's national metrology institute, which keeps and disseminates the legal time of Italy. https://www.inrim.it