Time in Rio de Janeiro
Brazil · America/Sao Paulo · latitude -22.91°
Reading your clock…
Rio de Janeiro never changes its clocks
Rio de Janeiro stays on UTC-03:00 all year round. This is worth being careful about rather than relaxed about: the gap between Rio de Janeiro 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: São Paulo share America/Sao_Paulo. Sunrise and sunset differ between them because latitude does, even though the clock does not.
Time difference from Rio de Janeiro
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 ahead | +3h / +4h |
| New York | 1 hour behind | −2h / −1h |
| Los Angeles | 4 hours behind | −5h / −4h |
| Chicago | 2 hours behind | −3h / −2h |
| Toronto | 1 hour behind | −2h / −1h |
| Paris | 5 hours ahead | +4h / +5h |
| Berlin | 5 hours ahead | +4h / +5h |
| Dubai | 7 hours ahead | constant |
| Mumbai | 8 hours 30 minutes ahead | constant |
| Singapore | 11 hours ahead | constant |
| Hong Kong | 11 hours ahead | constant |
| Tokyo | 12 hours ahead | constant |
| Sydney | 13 hours ahead | +13h / +14h |
| Auckland | 15 hours ahead | +15h / +16h |
| São Paulo | the same time | constant |
| UTC | 3 hours ahead | constant |
Daylight in Rio de Janeiro through the year
From about 10.7 hours in June to 13.6 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 | 05:31 | 18:51 | 13h 20m |
| February | 05:52 | 18:37 | 12h 45m |
| March | 06:05 | 18:12 | 12h 7m |
| April | 06:15 | 17:43 | 11h 28m |
| May | 06:28 | 17:25 | 10h 57m |
| June | 06:40 | 17:24 | 10h 44m |
| July | 06:40 | 17:34 | 10h 54m |
| August | 06:22 | 17:47 | 11h 25m |
| September | 05:52 | 17:56 | 12h 4m |
| October | 05:24 | 18:07 | 12h 43m |
| November | 05:08 | 18:26 | 13h 18m |
| December | 05:12 | 18:45 | 13h 33m |
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 Rio de Janeiro
What time zone is Rio de Janeiro in?
Rio de Janeiro uses the IANA time zone America/Sao_Paulo, a fixed UTC-03:00 with no daylight saving. The same zone covers São Paulo.
Does Rio de Janeiro observe daylight saving time?
No. Rio de Janeiro stays on UTC-03:00 all year. That does not mean the gap between Rio de Janeiro 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 Rio de Janeiro 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 3 hours ahead, then 4 hours ahead across the year rather than one fixed distance.
How much daylight does Rio de Janeiro get?
Around 13.6 hours at the longest, in December, and about 10.7 hours at the shortest, in June. The table on this page lists sunrise and sunset through the year. Times are calculated from Rio de Janeiro's latitude of -22.91° and are approximate to within about an hour for cities that sit well away from the centre of their time zone.