Time in Sydney
Australia · Australia/Sydney · latitude -33.87°
Reading your clock…
Sydney changes its clocks twice a year
Standard time is UTC+10:00 and daylight saving time is UTC+11:00. The shift is 1 hour, and it is the reason the distance between Sydney and anywhere else is not a single number.
| Date | Local time | Change | New offset |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday, 4 October 2026 | 02:00 → 03:00 | Forward 60 min | UTC+11:00 |
| Sunday, 4 April 2027 | 03:00 → 02:00 | Back 60 min | UTC+10:00 |
| Sunday, 3 October 2027 | 02:00 → 03:00 | Forward 60 min | UTC+11:00 |
Same clock, different sky: Canberra share Australia/Sydney. Sunrise and sunset differ between them because latitude does, even though the clock does not.
Time difference from Sydney
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 | 9 hours behind | −11h / −10h / −9h |
| New York | 14 hours behind | −16h / −15h / −14h |
| Los Angeles | 17 hours behind | −19h / −18h / −17h |
| Chicago | 15 hours behind | −17h / −16h / −15h |
| Toronto | 14 hours behind | −16h / −15h / −14h |
| Paris | 8 hours behind | −10h / −9h / −8h |
| Berlin | 8 hours behind | −10h / −9h / −8h |
| Dubai | 6 hours behind | −7h / −6h |
| Mumbai | 4 hours 30 minutes behind | −5h30 / −4h30 |
| Singapore | 2 hours behind | −3h / −2h |
| Hong Kong | 2 hours behind | −3h / −2h |
| Tokyo | 1 hour behind | −2h / −1h |
| Auckland | 2 hours ahead | +2h / +3h |
| São Paulo | 13 hours behind | −14h / −13h |
| UTC | 10 hours behind | −11h / −10h |
Daylight in Sydney through the year
From about 9.9 hours in June to 14.4 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 | 05:10 | 19:12 | 14h 2m |
| February | 05:41 | 18:48 | 13h 7m |
| March | 06:04 | 18:12 | 12h 8m |
| April | 06:27 | 17:32 | 11h 5m |
| May | 06:49 | 17:04 | 10h 15m |
| June | 07:05 | 16:59 | 9h 54m |
| July | 07:01 | 17:13 | 10h 12m |
| August | 06:34 | 17:34 | 11h 0m |
| September | 05:53 | 17:55 | 12h 2m |
| October | 05:13 | 18:18 | 13h 5m |
| November | 04:47 | 18:47 | 14h 0m |
| December | 04:46 | 19:11 | 14h 25m |
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 Sydney
What time zone is Sydney in?
Sydney uses the IANA time zone Australia/Sydney, which is UTC+10:00 in standard time and UTC+11:00 while daylight saving is in force. The same zone covers Canberra.
Does Sydney observe daylight saving time?
Yes. Clocks in Sydney move by 1 hour, and the next change is on Sunday, 4 October 2026.
Why does the time difference to Sydney 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 11 hours behind, then 10 hours behind, then 9 hours behind across the year rather than one fixed distance.
How much daylight does Sydney get?
Around 14.4 hours at the longest, in December, and about 9.9 hours at the shortest, in June. The table on this page lists sunrise and sunset through the year. Times are calculated from Sydney's latitude of -33.87° and are approximate to within about an hour for cities that sit well away from the centre of their time zone.