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Time in Japan — regions, cities and time zones

Japan runs on Japan Standard Time, UTC+9, across the entire country and all year round. Tokyo, Sapporo, Osaka and Naha share one clock, and it is never adjusted for summer.

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Capital Tokyo · Asia · ISO JP / JPN

Tokyo, Japan

Friday, 4 September 2026

UTC+9 · Asia/Tokyo

Time and sun data for Tokyo, Japan

The sun in Tokyo

Sunrise 05:16 Solar noon 11:42 Sunset 18:07 Daylight 12 h 51 min Night 11 h 09 min Civil twilight 04:50 – 18:33

States and regions (48)

Current time in Tokyo

Japan runs on Japan Standard Time, UTC+9, across the entire country and all year round. Tokyo, Sapporo, Osaka and Naha share one clock, and it is never adjusted for summer.

A single national clock

Japan stretches a long way from north to south and across a fair span of longitude, yet it operates on exactly one time zone: Asia/Tokyo, UTC+9. The offset is nine hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time, with no fractional component and no seasonal variation.

This simplicity is unusual for a country of Japan's east–west extent. The practical effect is that in the far southwest the sun rises noticeably later by the clock than it does in the northeast, and in Hokkaido summer daylight begins very early indeed. The country has accepted that trade-off in exchange for a national timetable that never needs a footnote.

No daylight saving time

Japan does not use daylight saving. Clocks are not advanced in spring, so the difference between Japan and any country that does shift its clocks changes twice a year — from Japan's side, the change happens elsewhere.

The offset to UTC is a constant +9, in every month. Against continental Europe, the gap narrows in the European summer and widens in winter. Against countries in the southern hemisphere that use daylight saving, the movement runs the other way.

Neighbouring Korea shares UTC+9, so that particular pair is stable year-round. A country that never touches its clocks has one fewer excuse for a missed meeting — which is either a comfort or a problem, depending on which end of the call you are on.

Regions, prefectures and islands

Japan is organised into prefectures, conventionally grouped into regions: Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu, Kansai, Chugoku, Shikoku, Kyushu and Okinawa. None of them keeps a separate time. Okinawa, far to the southwest, uses Tokyo time exactly as Aomori in the north does, and the remote inhabited islands administered from Tokyo do the same.

Because there is no internal boundary, timetables for rail, air and broadcast are published in one time without qualification. Anything labelled with a time in Japan means Japan Standard Time, and the only ambiguity you are likely to meet is the 24-hour clock used in schedules — where late-night services may appear as hours past 24 to keep an operating day together.

Coordinating with Japan

Japan is ahead of most of the world's other large business centres, which shapes how a working day overlaps: The Japanese afternoon is the European morning; that window is where most cross-continental calls land.

North American business hours reach Japan on the following calendar day, so a deadline written without a time zone can quietly slip by a date. When a partner country moves its clocks, the overlap shifts by an hour without anything changing in Japan.

For scheduling systems, use the identifier Asia/Tokyo rather than a fixed +9 offset, so the entry stays correct if rules ever change.

Questions and answers
Does Japan have more than one time zone?
No. The whole country, from Hokkaido to Okinawa, uses Japan Standard Time at UTC+9.
Do Japanese clocks change in summer?
They do not. Japan has no daylight saving time in force, so the offset is fixed throughout the year.
Is Japan the same time as South Korea?
Yes, both use UTC+9, and since neither observes daylight saving, the two countries stay aligned all year.

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