What are the China time zones?
China has 2 time zones, UTC+06:00 to UTC+08:00, as of September 30, 2026. The table shows every zone at an example time, 12:00 PM in Beijing Time: Beijing, Shanghai, all of China; type any time or date.
- Time zones
- 2
At 12:00 PM on September 30, 2026 in Beijing Time: Beijing, Shanghai, all of China, China has 2 time zones and 2 UTC offsets in use.
- UTC offsets in use at that moment
- 2
- Beijing Time: Beijing, Shanghai, all of China
- 12:00 PM · Wed, Sep 30 · UTC+08:00 · no daylight saving
- Hong Kong
- 12:00 PM · Wed, Sep 30 · UTC+08:00 · no daylight saving
- Macau
- 12:00 PM · Wed, Sep 30 · UTC+08:00 · no daylight saving
- Xinjiang Time: Ürümqi (used locally)
- 10:00 AM · Wed, Sep 30 · UTC+06:00 · no daylight saving
Answer for the example date Wednesday, September 30, 2026. It changes to today's date when the page loads.
Time zones: 2. At 12:00 PM on September 30, 2026 in Beijing Time: Beijing, Shanghai, all of China, China has 2 time zones and 2 UTC offsets in use.
How to calculate
Lists the time zones of China with the local time, abbreviation, UTC offset, and daylight saving in each, for any time and date.
Example with the default inputs (Time 12:00, In Beijing Time: Beijing, Shanghai, all of China, Date September 30, 2026) on the example date Wednesday, September 30, 2026: At 12:00 PM on September 30, 2026 in Beijing Time: Beijing, Shanghai, all of China, China has 2 time zones and 2 UTC offsets in use.
Method: For the typed time in the chosen zone, find the instant (UTC) it names, then show each listed zone’s clock at that instant with its UTC offset, from the browser’s IANA time zone data.
- The zones are IANA tzdata names from zone1970.tab (tzdata 2026a): Asia/Shanghai, Asia/Hong_Kong, Asia/Macau, Asia/Urumqi. The browser supplies each zone's offsets and daylight saving rules, so a rule change arrives with a browser update.
- “Time zones” counts the different standard offsets among the listed zones. A zone’s standard offset in a year is the lower of its offsets at 00:00 UTC on January 1 and July 1 of that UTC year.
- “UTC offsets in use” counts the different offsets the listed zones show at that moment.
- Each zone shows its local time, the abbreviation from the browser’s Unicode CLDR English names (left out when CLDR has none), the date as “Tue, Sep 29”, the offset as UTC+hh:mm or UTC−hh:mm, and “daylight saving” when the offset is ahead of the standard offset, “standard time” when the zone’s January 1 and July 1 offsets differ but it is on the standard offset, or “no daylight saving” when they are the same. Because the rule compares January 1 and July 1, a zone that moves its offset for good during a year (Cancún in 2015, Novosibirsk in 2016), or whose January 1 falls in Morocco’s Ramadan change (Casablanca in 2030 to 2033), shows the later offset as “daylight saving” for that year.
- A time that does not exist in the chosen zone (skipped when clocks spring forward) has no answer. A time that occurs twice (when clocks fall back) shows both moments, earlier first, where they differ.
- Dates from 2000 to 2040 work.
Worked examples
Each example is checked against the calculator on every build.
- Time 12:00, In Beijing Time: Beijing, Shanghai, all of China, Date 2026-01-15 gives Time zones 2, UTC offsets in use at that moment 2, Beijing Time: Beijing, Shanghai, all of China 12:00 PM · Thu, Jan 15 · UTC+08:00 · no daylight saving, Hong Kong 12:00 PM · Thu, Jan 15 · UTC+08:00 · no daylight saving, Macau 12:00 PM · Thu, Jan 15 · UTC+08:00 · no daylight saving, Xinjiang Time: Ürümqi (used locally) 10:00 AM · Thu, Jan 15 · UTC+06:00 · no daylight saving.Source: IANA Time Zone Database, tzdata 2026a (https://www.iana.org/time-zones)
- Time 12:00, In Beijing Time: Beijing, Shanghai, all of China, Date 2026-07-15 gives Time zones 2, UTC offsets in use at that moment 2, Beijing Time: Beijing, Shanghai, all of China 12:00 PM · Wed, Jul 15 · UTC+08:00 · no daylight saving, Hong Kong 12:00 PM · Wed, Jul 15 · UTC+08:00 · no daylight saving, Macau 12:00 PM · Wed, Jul 15 · UTC+08:00 · no daylight saving, Xinjiang Time: Ürümqi (used locally) 10:00 AM · Wed, Jul 15 · UTC+06:00 · no daylight saving.Source: IANA Time Zone Database, tzdata 2026a (https://www.iana.org/time-zones)
Other questions people ask
How many time zones does China have?
Officially one: Beijing Time (China Standard Time), UTC+08:00, all year, for the whole country; Hong Kong and Macau use UTC+08:00 too. Many people in Xinjiang also use an unofficial local time, Xinjiang Time (UTC+06:00), which the IANA database lists as Asia/Urumqi. The table counts it, so it shows 2.
Does China use daylight saving time?
No. China used daylight saving time from 1986 to 1991 and has kept UTC+08:00 all year since.
How far is Beijing ahead of New York?
As of Wednesday, September 30, 2026, Beijing is 12 hours ahead of New York: 12 hours during US daylight saving time and 13 hours in winter.