Complete UTC Offset List

Understanding UTC Offsets

UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is the primary time standard from which all civil time offsets are derived. A UTC offset describes how many hours and minutes a timezone is ahead of (+) or behind (-) UTC. For example, UTC-5 means 5 hours behind UTC (Eastern Standard Time in the US), while UTC+9 means 9 hours ahead (Japan Standard Time).

There are currently 38 unique UTC offsets in use worldwide, ranging from UTC-12 (Baker Island) to UTC+14 (Line Islands, Kiribati). Most offsets are whole hours, but several regions use half-hour (UTC+5:30, India) or quarter-hour (UTC+5:45, Nepal) offsets. This guide covers every offset with major cities and countries for reference.

Offsets Are Not Timezones

A critical distinction that causes many bugs: a UTC offset is not the same as a timezone. The offset UTC-5 is shared by Eastern Standard Time (EST), Colombia Time (COT), Peru Time (PET), and others. But during summer, US Eastern Time switches to EDT (UTC-4) while Colombia stays at UTC-5. The same offset maps to different timezones at different times of year.

This is why software should always use IANA timezone identifiers (like America/New_York) rather than fixed offsets or abbreviations. The IANA database encodes the full history of offset changes, DST rules, and political decisions for each region. See the IANA Reference tab in our converter for the complete database.

The Complete Offset Table

Notable Unusual Offsets

Most of the world uses whole-hour offsets, but several regions deviate for historical, political, or geographical reasons:

• India (UTC+5:30): The entire country of 1.4 billion people uses a single half-hour offset. Despite spanning roughly 30 degrees of longitude (which would suggest two time zones), India chose a single offset for national unity. This makes India's offset memorable for developers: it is always 30 minutes off from the nearest whole hour.
• Nepal (UTC+5:45): The world's only quarter-hour offset still in widespread use. Nepal chose this offset in 1986 to distinguish itself from India. It is 15 minutes ahead of India, which means scheduling across the India-Nepal border is surprisingly tricky.
• Chatham Islands (UTC+12:45): A New Zealand territory 45 minutes ahead of mainland New Zealand time. One of the first places on Earth to see each new day.
• Newfoundland (UTC-3:30): Canada's most easterly province uses a half-hour offset. Newfoundland jokes about being "half an hour behind the rest of Canada" have a literal truth.
• UTC+14 (Line Islands): The world's most extreme positive offset. Kiribati moved these islands from UTC-10 to UTC+14 in 1995 to be on the same calendar day as the rest of the nation. This means these islands are a full 26 hours ahead of Baker Island (UTC-12), despite being relatively close geographically.

Offsets and Daylight Saving Time

DST causes offsets to shift by one hour (usually) during summer months. This means the same city can have two different offsets depending on the date. For example:

• New York: UTC-5 (EST, November-March) or UTC-4 (EDT, March-November)
• London: UTC+0 (GMT, October-March) or UTC+1 (BST, March-October)
• Sydney: UTC+10 (AEST, April-October) or UTC+11 (AEDT, October-April)

Not all countries observe DST. Japan, China, India, and most equatorial nations do not. For a detailed explanation, see our DST guide for developers.

Working with Offsets in Code

// JavaScript - get current offset in minutes
new Date().getTimezoneOffset()  // -300 for UTC-5 (note: sign is inverted!)

// JavaScript - format with offset
new Intl.DateTimeFormat('en', {
  timeZone: 'Asia/Kolkata',
  timeZoneName: 'longOffset',
}).format(new Date())
// "4/7/2026, GMT+05:30"

// Python
from datetime import datetime, timezone, timedelta
dt = datetime.now(timezone(timedelta(hours=5, minutes=30)))

// Go
loc, _ := time.LoadLocation("Asia/Kolkata")
time.Now().In(loc).Format(time.RFC3339)
// "2026-04-07T22:30:00+05:30"

Always prefer IANA timezone names over fixed offsets. Use our Timezone Converter to quickly find the correct IANA identifier for any city, then store timestamps in UTC and convert to local time at display time.

Try It Yourself

Use the IANA Zones tab to browse and search all timezone identifiers, or the Abbreviations tab to decode ambiguous codes like CST (which maps to 5 different timezones). Convert between any zones with the main converter.