Tokyo Time Now

What this page shows

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

Tokyo does not change its clocks

Here is the part worth knowing about Tokyo time, and it makes things easy. Japan does not use daylight saving. There is no spring forward and no fall back, so Tokyo 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 come back. So unlike Europe or North America, there are no change dates to track here. Whenever you look, Tokyo is at UTC plus 9, and the clock above simply shows that time.

What time zone Tokyo is in

Tokyo runs on Japan Standard Time, nine hours ahead of UTC, and it holds that offset every day of the year. The whole of Japan keeps this single clock, and so does Korea just across the sea, which sits on the same offset.

Because Tokyo is so far east, its working day opens early on the world's clock. The Tokyo Stock Exchange is one of the first major markets to start trading each day, hours ahead of Europe and most of a day ahead of the Americas, so for anyone watching global markets, the day often effectively begins in Tokyo. That eastern position is also why a call from Europe or the US so often lands late at night or early in the morning for one side, as the examples below show.

Time difference from Tokyo to other cities

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

A few quick examples

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

Say it is 12 noon in Tokyo. 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 Tokyo, 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 Tokyo: the gap is so wide that a midday moment here falls 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 Tokyo time

Tokyo sits at about 36 degrees north, so the length of the day swings a moderate amount across the year. Around midsummer there are roughly fourteen and a half hours between sunrise and sunset, while around midwinter that drops to under ten hours. One thing visitors often notice is how early the day starts: with no daylight saving to push the clock back, summer dawns come remarkably early, well before 5 in the morning.

On the clock-against-sun question, Tokyo runs a touch ahead of the sun. Japan Standard Time is built on the meridian at 135 degrees east, which passes well to the west of Tokyo, so the sun actually reaches its highest a little before 12 noon by the clock, at around 11:40 in the middle of the year. It is a small lean, and a steady one, since the clock never shifts.

Other places on the same time

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

• Seoul time now, on the same offset
• Japan time now, the country as a whole
• Beijing time now, an hour behind

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

Questions people ask

What time is it in Tokyo right now?

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

Does Tokyo change its clocks for daylight saving?

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

Is Tokyo the same time as Seoul?

Yes. South Korea sits on the same offset as Japan, UTC plus 9, and neither uses daylight saving, so Tokyo and Seoul always read the same clock.

What time zone is Tokyo in?

Japan Standard Time, nine hours ahead of UTC, held all year. The whole of Japan keeps this single clock.

What is the time difference between Tokyo and New York?

New York is normally fourteen hours behind Tokyo, 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 Tokyo 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. 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