Time in Chennai
India · Asia/Kolkata · latitude 13.08°
Reading your clock…
Chennai never changes its clocks
Chennai stays on UTC+05:30 all year round. This is worth being careful about rather than relaxed about: the gap between Chennai and a city that does observe daylight saving still moves twice a year, because the other end moved. A recurring call can drift by an hour without anything changing here at all.
Same clock, different sky: Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune share Asia/Kolkata. Sunrise and sunset differ between them because latitude does, even though the clock does not.
Time difference from Chennai
Where a range is shown, the gap genuinely changes during the year. That is not rounding or hedging — it is two governments moving their clocks on different weekends.
| City | Difference now | Across the year |
|---|---|---|
| London | 4 hours 30 minutes behind | −5h30 / −4h30 |
| New York | 9 hours 30 minutes behind | −10h30 / −9h30 |
| Los Angeles | 12 hours 30 minutes behind | −13h30 / −12h30 |
| Chicago | 10 hours 30 minutes behind | −11h30 / −10h30 |
| Toronto | 9 hours 30 minutes behind | −10h30 / −9h30 |
| Paris | 3 hours 30 minutes behind | −4h30 / −3h30 |
| Berlin | 3 hours 30 minutes behind | −4h30 / −3h30 |
| Dubai | 1 hour 30 minutes behind | constant |
| Mumbai | the same time | constant |
| Singapore | 2 hours 30 minutes ahead | constant |
| Hong Kong | 2 hours 30 minutes ahead | constant |
| Tokyo | 3 hours 30 minutes ahead | constant |
| Sydney | 4 hours 30 minutes ahead | +4h30 / +5h30 |
| Auckland | 6 hours 30 minutes ahead | +6h30 / +7h30 |
| São Paulo | 8 hours 30 minutes behind | constant |
| UTC | 5 hours 30 minutes behind | constant |
Daylight in Chennai through the year
From about 11.3 hours in December to 12.9 hours in June. This is the part a plain clock leaves out: 17:00 is a bright evening in one month and long dark in another.
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 06:27 | 17:55 | 11h 28m |
| February | 06:21 | 18:08 | 11h 47m |
| March | 06:05 | 18:12 | 12h 7m |
| April | 05:45 | 18:14 | 12h 29m |
| May | 05:34 | 18:20 | 12h 46m |
| June | 05:35 | 18:29 | 12h 54m |
| July | 05:43 | 18:31 | 12h 48m |
| August | 05:49 | 18:19 | 12h 30m |
| September | 05:49 | 17:58 | 12h 9m |
| October | 05:51 | 17:39 | 11h 48m |
| November | 06:02 | 17:31 | 11h 29m |
| December | 06:18 | 17:39 | 11h 21m |
Daylight length is accurate. The clock times of sunrise and sunset assume each city sits at the centre of its time zone, which can put them up to about an hour and a quarter out for places near a zone's edge — Madrid being the standard example. Day length is unaffected.
Questions
About time in Chennai
What time zone is Chennai in?
Chennai uses the IANA time zone Asia/Kolkata, a fixed UTC+05:30 with no daylight saving. The same zone covers Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune.
Does Chennai observe daylight saving time?
No. Chennai stays on UTC+05:30 all year. That does not mean the gap between Chennai and other cities is fixed, though: when a city that does observe daylight saving changes its clocks, the difference between you and them moves even though nothing changed here.
Why does the time difference to Chennai keep changing?
Because the two places do not change their clocks on the same weekend, and in opposite hemispheres they change in opposite directions. London is a clear example: it sits 5 hours 30 minutes behind, then 4 hours 30 minutes behind across the year rather than one fixed distance.
How much daylight does Chennai get?
Around 12.9 hours at the longest, in June, and about 11.3 hours at the shortest, in December. The table on this page lists sunrise and sunset through the year. Times are calculated from Chennai's latitude of 13.08° and are approximate to within about an hour for cities that sit well away from the centre of their time zone.