Time in San José
Costa Rica · America/Costa Rica · latitude 9.93°
Reading your clock…
San José never changes its clocks
San José stays on UTC-06:00 all year round. This is worth being careful about rather than relaxed about: the gap between San José 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.
Time difference from San José
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 | 7 hours ahead | +6h / +7h |
| New York | 2 hours ahead | +1h / +2h |
| Los Angeles | 1 hour behind | −2h / −1h |
| Chicago | 1 hour ahead | 0 / +1h |
| Toronto | 2 hours ahead | +1h / +2h |
| Paris | 8 hours ahead | +7h / +8h |
| Berlin | 8 hours ahead | +7h / +8h |
| Dubai | 10 hours ahead | constant |
| Mumbai | 11 hours 30 minutes ahead | constant |
| Singapore | 14 hours ahead | constant |
| Hong Kong | 14 hours ahead | constant |
| Tokyo | 15 hours ahead | constant |
| Sydney | 16 hours ahead | +16h / +17h |
| Auckland | 18 hours ahead | +18h / +19h |
| São Paulo | 3 hours ahead | constant |
| UTC | 6 hours ahead | constant |
Daylight in San José through the year
From about 11.6 hours in December to 12.7 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 | 06:22 | 18:00 | 11h 38m |
| February | 06:19 | 18:10 | 11h 51m |
| March | 06:05 | 18:12 | 12h 7m |
| April | 05:48 | 18:11 | 12h 23m |
| May | 05:39 | 18:15 | 12h 36m |
| June | 05:41 | 18:23 | 12h 42m |
| July | 05:48 | 18:26 | 12h 38m |
| August | 05:52 | 18:16 | 12h 24m |
| September | 05:50 | 17:58 | 12h 8m |
| October | 05:49 | 17:41 | 11h 52m |
| November | 05:57 | 17:36 | 11h 39m |
| December | 06:12 | 17:45 | 11h 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 San José
What time zone is San José in?
San José uses the IANA time zone America/Costa_Rica, a fixed UTC-06:00 with no daylight saving.
Does San José observe daylight saving time?
No. San José stays on UTC-06:00 all year. That does not mean the gap between San José 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 San José 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 6 hours ahead, then 7 hours ahead across the year rather than one fixed distance.
How much daylight does San José get?
Around 12.7 hours at the longest, in June, and about 11.6 hours at the shortest, in December. The table on this page lists sunrise and sunset through the year. Times are calculated from San José's latitude of 9.93° and are approximate to within about an hour for cities that sit well away from the centre of their time zone.