United Kingdom Time Now

What this page shows

So you want to know what time it is in the UK right now. Maybe you have a call with someone there, a flight to catch, a match kicking off on UK 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 the United Kingdom and ticks forward every second, so there is nothing for you to work out by hand.

The UK keeps a single time zone, so this clock is good for the whole country, from London to Glasgow. Wherever in the world you are reading from, it keeps itself right on its own, even across the days when the clocks change.

The UK changes its clocks twice a year

Here is the part worth knowing about UK time. The United Kingdom does not stay on the same clock all year. It uses Greenwich Mean Time, GMT, through the winter, and moves an hour ahead to British Summer Time, BST, for the summer.

So there are two settings behind UK time:

• GMT, Greenwich Mean Time. Level with UTC, at zero offset. The winter setting, from late October to late March.
• BST, British Summer Time. One hour ahead of UTC, written UTC plus 1. 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 the UK is in

The United Kingdom keeps a single time zone across all four of its nations, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. In winter that is Greenwich Mean Time, level with UTC at zero offset, and in summer it springs forward an hour to British Summer Time, at UTC plus 1. Ireland and mainland Portugal keep the same hours.

The UK also has a claim no other country can make. Greenwich, in London, is home to the prime meridian, the line of zero longitude that the whole world measures its time zones from. Greenwich Mean Time is named after it, and every other zone on earth is counted as so many hours ahead of or behind that line. So the reference the rest of the world sets its clocks against began, in a sense, right here.

How to tell if the UK is on GMT or BST right now

The UK changes its clocks on two Sundays a year, and the dates are set in UK law, the Summer Time Act 1972 as amended by the Summer Time Order 2002. They are the same dates the rest of Europe uses:

• Spring forward. On the last Sunday of March, at 1 in the morning, the clocks jump ahead one hour. GMT becomes BST, and the UK goes from zero offset to UTC plus 1.
• Fall back. On the last Sunday of October, at 2 in the morning, the clocks drop back one hour. BST becomes GMT again, level with UTC.

So the rule is short. From the last Sunday of March to the last Sunday of October, the UK is on BST. The rest of the year, late October round to late March, it is on GMT. Place today between those two Sundays and you have your answer.

Time difference from the UK to other places

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

A few quick examples

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

Say it is 12 noon in the UK. Paris is an hour ahead all year, so 1 in the afternoon there. In the winter, New York is five hours behind, making it 7 in the morning on the US East Coast, while Mumbai is five and a half hours ahead at 5:30 in the evening.

Now a call to New York, which has one small catch. The UK 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 five hour gap briefly narrows to four. 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 nine hours ahead of the UK in winter, so a 9 in the morning start here is already 6 in the evening in Tokyo. The overlap between the UK and Japan is narrow, so those calls tend to sit early in the British morning.

A couple of things about UK time

The United Kingdom stretches across a fair range of latitude, from around 50 degrees north in Cornwall up past 58 in the north of Scotland, so the length of the day varies with where you are. The far north sees nearly eighteen hours of daylight at midsummer and barely seven in deep winter, a sharper swing than the south, where the seasons sit a little more evenly. In the northern isles, midsummer brings a long twilight where the sky never fully darkens.

On the clock-against-sun question, the UK is about as honest as it gets, by design. London sits right on the Greenwich meridian, so in winter, on GMT, the sun is at its highest close to 12 noon by the clock. Further west, in Wales and the west of Scotland, the sun runs a little later. In summer, on BST, the whole country is an hour ahead of the sun, which is the point of the change: more daylight in the evening.

Other places on the same time

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

• London time now
• Edinburgh time now

And if it is the time zone itself you are reading up on rather than the country, the winter side is at GMT Time Now, the summer side at BST Time Now, and the global reference both are measured from at UTC Time Now.

Questions people ask

What time is it in the UK right now?

The clock near the top of this page is the answer, and it updates every second. The UK keeps one time zone throughout. It changes its clocks, so it reads GMT in winter and BST in summer, and either way the time shown is correct.

Is the UK on GMT or BST right now?

Go by the dates. The UK is on BST 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 GMT. Find where today falls between those two Sundays and you will know.

Does the whole UK have the same time?

Yes. England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland all keep a single time zone, so the clock reads the same across the entire country, summer and winter alike.

What time zone is the UK in?

Greenwich Mean Time, at zero offset, in the winter, and British Summer Time, one hour ahead of UTC, in the summer. Greenwich, in London, is the home of the prime meridian that the world's zones are measured from.

How many hours ahead of New York is the UK?

Normally five hours ahead. The two change their clocks but on slightly different dates, so for a couple of short windows in spring and autumn the gap narrows to four hours.

What is the IANA name for UK time?

It is Europe/London in the IANA time zone database, the time data your phone and your computer use. It carries both the GMT and BST 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/London identifier. https://www.iana.org/time-zones
2. UK Summer Time Order 2002 (SI 2002/262), amending the Summer Time Act 1972, which sets the dates the United Kingdom switches between GMT and British Summer Time. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/262/contents/made
3. Royal Observatory Greenwich (Royal Museums Greenwich), home of the prime meridian and Greenwich Mean Time. https://www.rmg.co.uk
4. National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the United Kingdom's national measurement institute and keeper of UK time. https://www.npl.co.uk