Time in Johannesburg
South Africa · Africa/Johannesburg · latitude -26.20°
Reading your clock…
Johannesburg never changes its clocks
Johannesburg stays on UTC+02:00 all year round. This is worth being careful about rather than relaxed about: the gap between Johannesburg 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: Cape Town share Africa/Johannesburg. Sunrise and sunset differ between them because latitude does, even though the clock does not.
Time difference from Johannesburg
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 | 1 hour behind | −2h / −1h |
| New York | 6 hours behind | −7h / −6h |
| Los Angeles | 9 hours behind | −10h / −9h |
| Chicago | 7 hours behind | −8h / −7h |
| Toronto | 6 hours behind | −7h / −6h |
| Paris | the same time | −1h / 0 |
| Berlin | the same time | −1h / 0 |
| Dubai | 2 hours ahead | constant |
| Mumbai | 3 hours 30 minutes ahead | constant |
| Singapore | 6 hours ahead | constant |
| Hong Kong | 6 hours ahead | constant |
| Tokyo | 7 hours ahead | constant |
| Sydney | 8 hours ahead | +8h / +9h |
| Auckland | 10 hours ahead | +10h / +11h |
| São Paulo | 5 hours behind | constant |
| UTC | 2 hours behind | constant |
Daylight in Johannesburg through the year
From about 10.5 hours in June to 13.8 hours in December. 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 | 05:25 | 18:57 | 13h 32m |
| February | 05:49 | 18:40 | 12h 51m |
| March | 06:04 | 18:12 | 12h 8m |
| April | 06:19 | 17:40 | 11h 21m |
| May | 06:34 | 17:19 | 10h 45m |
| June | 06:47 | 17:17 | 10h 30m |
| July | 06:46 | 17:28 | 10h 42m |
| August | 06:25 | 17:43 | 11h 18m |
| September | 05:52 | 17:55 | 12h 3m |
| October | 05:21 | 18:10 | 12h 49m |
| November | 05:02 | 18:32 | 13h 30m |
| December | 05:05 | 18:52 | 13h 47m |
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 Johannesburg
What time zone is Johannesburg in?
Johannesburg uses the IANA time zone Africa/Johannesburg, a fixed UTC+02:00 with no daylight saving. The same zone covers Cape Town.
Does Johannesburg observe daylight saving time?
No. Johannesburg stays on UTC+02:00 all year. That does not mean the gap between Johannesburg 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 Johannesburg 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 2 hours behind, then 1 hour behind across the year rather than one fixed distance.
How much daylight does Johannesburg get?
Around 13.8 hours at the longest, in December, and about 10.5 hours at the shortest, in June. The table on this page lists sunrise and sunset through the year. Times are calculated from Johannesburg's latitude of -26.20° and are approximate to within about an hour for cities that sit well away from the centre of their time zone.