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Time in China — regions, cities and time zones

China uses one time zone for the entire country: China Standard Time, UTC+8, often called Beijing Time. From the eastern coast to the far western border, every official clock reads the same. There is no daylight saving.

Flag of China China

Capital Beijing · Asia · ISO CN / CHN

Beijing, China

Friday, 4 September 2026

UTC+8 · Asia/Shanghai

Time and sun data for Beijing, China

The sun in Beijing

Sunrise 06:13 Solar noon 12:38 Sunset 19:03 Daylight 12 h 50 min Night 11 h 10 min Civil twilight 05:47 – 19:29

States and regions (32)

Current time in Beijing

China uses one time zone for the entire country: China Standard Time, UTC+8, often called Beijing Time. From the eastern coast to the far western border, every official clock reads the same. There is no daylight saving.

One zone across five zones' worth of land

China is wide enough that, on pure longitude, it would span several time zones. It uses one anyway. That decision makes national coordination trivially simple — a train timetable, a broadcast, a market open and a government deadline all mean the same moment everywhere — at the cost of pushing the far west badly out of step with the sun.

In Xinjiang, the westernmost region, the official clock says one thing and the sky says another. Sunrise there arrives hours later by the clock than it does in Shanghai. Local life adapts: schedules simply shift later in the day to compensate.

In Beijing the clock and the sun agree. Travel far enough west and they stop speaking, but the timetable takes Beijing's side.

What that means in daily life

No internal conversion, ever. A call between Harbin and Kunming needs no arithmetic. Working hours shift instead of clocks. Offices in the far west commonly start and finish later than the national norm.

Travel is simple. A domestic flight across the country never crosses a time boundary. Sunrise and sunset vary hugely by longitude. The same clock time means full daylight in one city and darkness in another.

Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan

The special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau keep UTC+8, matching the mainland, so no adjustment is needed travelling between them and Guangzhou or Shenzhen. Taiwan also uses UTC+8. In practical scheduling terms, this whole part of East Asia reads the same number off the clock, which is one reason regional business runs as smoothly as it does across a large area.

No daylight saving

China does not currently move its clocks seasonally. For anyone coordinating from Europe or the Americas, that means China is the fixed point and your own clock is the one that moves. A standing weekly call with a Beijing team will shift by an hour when your country changes its clocks, twice a year, unless the meeting is stored with proper time-zone information rather than as a fixed local number.

The rule of thumb worth keeping: when the offset to China changes, check what happened at your end first. Nine times out of ten that is where the change came from.

Questions and answers
How many time zones does China have?
One official zone, UTC+8, for the whole country.
Does China observe daylight saving time?
No. The offset stays at UTC+8 year-round.
Is Hong Kong the same time as Beijing?
Yes. Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland all keep UTC+8.

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