Time in different countries, compared
Laid out side by side, the pattern is not really about geography — it is about which countries move their clocks and which do not.
The comparison
| Country | Zones | Offset | Changes clocks? |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 1 | UTC+0 / UTC+1 | Yes |
| Germany | 1 | UTC+1 / UTC+2 | Yes |
| United States | 6 | UTC−5 to UTC−10 | Yes, except AZ & HI |
| Brazil | 4 | UTC−3 and others | No (abolished 2019) |
| Russia | 11 | UTC+3 to UTC+12 | No (abolished 2014) |
| India | 1 | UTC+5:30 | No |
| China | 1 | UTC+8 | No |
| Japan | 1 | UTC+9 | No |
| Singapore | 1 | UTC+8 | No |
| UAE | 1 | UTC+4 | No |
| South Africa | 1 | UTC+2 | No |
| Australia | 3 (5 in summer) | UTC+8 to UTC+11 | Some states only |
| New Zealand | 2 | UTC+13 / UTC+12 | Yes |
| Nepal | 1 | UTC+5:45 | No |
Three patterns worth noticing
Most of the world does not change its clocks. Look down the last column: the "no" entries cover most of the world's population. Daylight saving feels universal if you live in Europe or North America and is a regional curiosity almost everywhere else.
Zone count has little to do with size. China is roughly as wide as the continental US and runs on one clock. India is wide enough for two and uses one. Russia, with eleven, is the outlier in the other direction. This is a political choice, not a geographic consequence.
Not all offsets are whole hours. India at UTC+5:30, Nepal at UTC+5:45, Iran at UTC+3:30, Myanmar at UTC+6:30, and parts of Australia at UTC+9:30. Any tool that assumes whole hours is wrong for a lot of people.
Australia is the complicated one
Three standard zones — UTC+8 in the west, UTC+10:30 in the centre, UTC+10 in the east.
But only New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT observe daylight saving. Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory do not. So in the southern summer the country has five distinct local times across three nominal zones — Sydney and Brisbane, nominally the same zone, are an hour apart for several months.
What this means in practice
If your counterpart is somewhere that does not change its clocks, then every seasonal shift in your relationship is caused by you. That is worth knowing, because it identifies who should adjust: the side that moved.
And it means an offset you memorised is a fact about a moment, not about a place. Look the city up instead.
Related: What time is it in another country? · Which countries still change their clocks?
Timezone: World Clock Widget
A world clock, converter and live day/night map for iPhone — 325 cities, offline, no account.
Figures on this page are computed from the IANA time zone database. Last generated 2026-08-18.