5.0 out of 5 — 348194 votes

Time in Montserrat — regions, cities and time zones

Montserrat keeps Atlantic Standard Time, UTC−4, all year. Daylight saving is not observed, so the offset never moves. A single zone covers the whole island, and the IANA identifier is America/Montserrat.

Flag of Montserrat Montserrat

Capital Plymouth · North America · ISO MS / MSR

Plymouth, Montserrat

Friday, 4 September 2026

UTC−4 · America/Montserrat

Time and sun data for Plymouth, Montserrat

The sun in Plymouth

Sunrise 05:57 Solar noon 12:09 Sunset 18:21 Daylight 12 h 24 min Night 11 h 36 min Civil twilight 05:35 – 18:43

States and regions (3)

Current time in Plymouth

Plymouth is Montserrat's official capital, and it is also an abandoned town. Volcanic activity from the Soufrière Hills buried and evacuated it in the 1990s, and it lies inside an exclusion zone. It remains the de jure capital, which makes it one of very few capitals with no residents to read the clock.

Day-to-day government and business operate from Brades, in the north of the island, with Little Bay developing as a port and future capital. All of it runs on UTC−4, with no internal variation.

One island, one fixed offset

Montserrat is a British Overseas Territory in the Leeward Islands, roughly 16 kilometres long. Its timekeeping is as simple as its geography allows. Offset: UTC−4, year-round Zone name: Atlantic Standard Time (AST)

IANA zone: America/Montserrat Daylight saving: not observed Same offset as: Antigua, Saint Kitts, Dominica, Puerto Rico, Barbados The nearest neighbour, Antigua, is on the same clock — useful, since most travel to Montserrat routes through it by ferry or short flight. Nobody adjusts a watch on that crossing.

Why the Caribbean stays put

Almost every island in the eastern Caribbean holds a fixed offset. At these latitudes the difference in day length between midsummer and midwinter is modest, and there is little evening light to be gained by shifting the clock. The sun comes up early and goes down early, in June much as in December.

Tropical daylight is punctual to a fault. It does not need a policy, and it would not read one. The consequence for outsiders is that Montserrat's relationship with North America changes twice a year without anything happening locally. In winter the island matches New York's UTC−5 neighbours by one hour; in summer, when New York moves to UTC−4, the two read the same time.

Working across the offset

Useful anchors: Same time as New York during North American summer time; one hour ahead of it in winter. Four hours behind UTC at all times — a simple, constant conversion. Four hours behind London in winter and five hours behind during British Summer Time.

Same time as every other Leeward and Windward island on AST, all year. Because Montserrat's administration is British and its regional links are Caribbean, both relationships matter. The London gap moves with the seasons; the Antigua gap never does.

Where people actually are

The island's population lives in the northern third, outside the exclusion zone. The settlements that matter for practical scheduling: Brades — the seat of government Little Bay — port and site of the planned new capital

Salem, St John's, Davy Hill, Cudjoe Head — northern villages Plymouth — capital in law, evacuated in fact The airport at Gerald's, in the north, replaced the one destroyed in the south. Flight schedules, ferry timetables and office hours all quote AST without qualification, because there is nothing to qualify.

Questions and answers
Does Montserrat use daylight saving time?
No. The island stays on UTC−4 every day of the year.
Is Plymouth still the capital?
Officially yes, though it was evacuated following volcanic activity in the 1990s and lies within an exclusion zone. Government functions from Brades in the north.
Is Montserrat the same time as New York?
During North American summer time, yes — both are UTC−4. In winter New York drops to UTC−5, putting Montserrat an hour ahead.

Related tools and information

All pages