What time is it in South Africa?
GMT+2 · Africa/Johannesburg
Back to South AfricaNow in Bloemfontein
GMT+2 UTC+02:00
UTC+02:00
all yearSouth Africa Standard Time
South Africa keeps one time zone, South Africa Standard Time or SAST, two hours ahead of UTC, and its clocks do not change in summer. Lesotho and Eswatini keep the same time. The zone's solar noon falls on 30 degrees east, close to Pietermaritzburg, so Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban see the sun at its highest near 12:00. Everywhere on land west of 22°30′E, which takes in Cape Town and the western Northern Cape, runs as if on permanent summer time, with late sunrises and late sunsets.
Today
Daylight in Bloemfontein today
DayLive
12:00
- Sunrise
- 05:55First light 05:31
- Sunset
- 18:15Last light 18:38
- Day length
- 12 h 20 min+2 min on yesterday
- Solar noon
- 12:05Sun at 63°, its highest
Plan a call
Find an hour that works in South Africa and elsewhere
The two rows are the same day, hour for hour. Pick a city, then an hour, and the line between the rows marks the office hours both sides share.
Time difference
How far South Africa is from other places
Neighbours
- BotswanaGaboroneSame time
- LesothoMaseruSame time
- MozambiqueMaputoSame time
- NamibiaWindhoekSame time
- EswatiniLobambaSame time
- ZimbabweHarareSame time
Around the world
- London−1 h
- New York−6 h
- Los Angeles−9 h
- São Paulo−5 h
- Moscow+1 h
- Dubai+2 h
- Delhi+3:30 h
- Beijing+6 h
- Tokyo+7 h
- Sydney+8 h
Clock changes
South Africa does not change its clocks
South Africa has used summer time only during the Second World War. Clocks went forward to three hours ahead of Greenwich from 20 September 1942 to 21 March 1943, and again from 19 September 1943 to 19 March 1944. Both periods ran across the southern summer, from September to March. The country has stayed at two hours ahead ever since.
Daylight
Sunrise and sunset through the year in Bloemfontein
- Sunrise
- 05:55
- Sunset
- 18:15
- Daylight
- 12 h 20 min
- Change
- +2 min
Longest day of 2026: 16 December, 14 h 00 min.
Computed for -29.10, 26.22 at sea level with the NOAA solar equations, to the nearest minute, taking no account of hills.
Writing the time
- Clock
- 24-hour
- Short date
- 2026-03-05
- Long date
- 05 Maart 2026
- Week starts
- Sunday
- Zone names
- GMT+2
- Time zone database
- Johannesburg
History
How the clocks in South Africa got here
- 1890
- To 1891.Local mean time, UTC+01:52, before the standard zone.
- 1892
- The move from local mean time, UTC+01:52, to UTC+01:30.
- 1893
- To 1902.UTC+01:30 all year.
- 1903
- Clocks on UTC+01:30, UTC+02:00 at different times of the year.
- 1904
- To 1941.UTC+02:00 all year, no summer time.
- 1942
- UTC+02:00 in winter, UTC+03:00 in summer time.
- 1943
- UTC+02:00 in winter, UTC+03:00 in summer time.
- 1944
- UTC+02:00 in winter, UTC+03:00 in summer time.
- 1945
- To today.UTC+02:00 all year, no summer time.
From the IANA time zone database, Africa/Johannesburg, as the build machine carries it.
Common questions
Questions about the time in South Africa
What time zone is South Africa in?
South Africa Standard Time, abbreviated SAST, two hours ahead of UTC. It covers the whole country, from Cape Town to the Kruger border, and the time zone database lists it as Africa/Johannesburg. Lesotho and Eswatini, both surrounded or almost surrounded by South Africa, keep the same time. The offset is the same as Central Africa Time, and a Government Gazette of 8 July 2016 defines SAST as Coordinated Universal Time plus two hours.
Does South Africa change its clocks for daylight saving?
No. The clocks stay on SAST through the year. The only summer time on record was a wartime measure: from 20 September 1942 to 21 March 1943 and from 19 September 1943 to 19 March 1944 the country ran three hours ahead of Greenwich. It has not changed its clocks since.
Why does the sun set so late in Cape Town?
Cape Town lies far to the west of the meridian the zone is built on. SAST is solar time at 30 degrees east, near Pietermaritzburg, while land west of 22°30′E would fit an offset of one hour ahead of UTC. The Western Cape therefore lives on something close to summer time all year. At the summer solstice the sun rises in Cape Town at 05:32 and sets at 19:57; in Durban it rises at 04:52 and sets at 18:56.
Where does the two-hour offset come from?
Before 8 February 1892 every town kept its own local mean time. A railway conference in Bloemfontein that year led the Orange Free State, the Transvaal and the Cape Colony to adopt a uniform time one and a half hours ahead of Greenwich, the mean time of 22.5 degrees east. Natal already used the time of the Natal Observatory, one hour and 52 minutes ahead. On 1 March 1903 the whole region moved to two hours ahead, the offset it still keeps.
Who keeps the official time in South Africa?
The South African National Time Standard, known as the SA Time Master Clock, is kept at the Time and Frequency Laboratory of the National Metrology Institute of South Africa in Pretoria. The institute distributes it to the public over the internet through a Network Time Protocol service, which computers and networks can use to set their clocks.
How are dates and times written in South Africa?
South Africa adopted ISO 8601 through a national standard in 1998, and the current one, SANS 8601:2009, is an identical implementation of ISO 8601:2004. It makes no distinction between the eleven official languages. Dates can be written year first, as in 2026-03-05, and time uses the 24-hour clock with a colon between hours and minutes, as in 14:30.