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Time in Thailand — regions, cities and time zones

Thailand runs on Indochina Time, UTC+7, nationwide and year-round. There is no daylight saving. Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket and Udon Thani share one clock, so domestic travel never involves resetting a watch.

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Capital Bangkok · Asia · ISO TH / THA

Bangkok, Thailand

Friday, 4 September 2026

UTC+7 · Asia/Bangkok

Time and sun data for Bangkok, Thailand

The sun in Bangkok

Sunrise 06:08 Solar noon 12:19 Sunset 18:29 Daylight 12 h 21 min Night 11 h 39 min Civil twilight 05:46 – 18:51

States and regions (78)

Current time in Bangkok

Bangkok is the reference point for Thai time in practice and in the time zone database, where the country's entry is Asia/Bangkok. The offset is a flat seven hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time, held constant through every month of the year. Whether it is the cool season, the hot season or the rains, the arithmetic is the same.

That stability makes Thailand a convenient anchor for anyone coordinating across Southeast Asia. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos keep the same UTC+7 offset, so a meeting set in Bangkok terms lands identically in Hanoi, Phnom Penh and Vientiane.

One zone from the north to the far south

Thailand is long — the distance from the Golden Triangle in the north to the Malaysian border in the south is considerable — but it is relatively narrow east to west, which makes a single zone a natural fit. The practical effects show up in daylight rather than in the clock:

Northern provinces such as Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai see a wider seasonal swing in sunrise and sunset than the far south. Southern provinces near Hat Yai and the islands have days of nearly constant length year-round.

Everywhere, the legal time is identical, so bus, rail and flight timetables need no zone annotations.

The Buddhist Era year

The hour in Thailand is ordinary UTC+7, but the year is often not the one on your passport. Thailand commonly uses the Buddhist Era calendar, which runs 543 years ahead of the Common Era. Receipts, official documents, newspapers and product expiry dates frequently carry a BE year. Adding or subtracting 543 converts between the two.

Nothing quite prepares you for buying milk in Bangkok and reading an expiry date more than five centuries in the future. The milk is fine. The calendar is just counting from somewhere else. Clock time and calendar era are separate matters, and confusing them is the most common time-related mistake visitors make. The hour needs no conversion within Thailand; the year sometimes does.

Why there is no summer time

Daylight saving exists to shift working hours toward available daylight in places where the seasonal difference is dramatic. Thailand sits between roughly six and twenty degrees north, where that difference is modest. Moving the clocks would buy very little and cost the usual confusion, so the country has kept a fixed offset.

The consequence for international scheduling is that the gap between Thailand and Europe or North America is not constant. It narrows or widens when those countries change their own clocks in spring and autumn. Bangkok stays put; the other end moves.

Planning around Thai business hours

Government offices and banks typically open in the morning and close mid to late afternoon on weekdays. Thailand observes a number of public holidays, including several tied to the lunar calendar, whose dates move from year to year.

For calls with Europe, the Thai afternoon overlaps a European morning; for calls with the US west coast, the overlap is the Thai morning against the previous US evening.

Questions and answers
Is all of Thailand in one time zone?
Yes. Every province uses UTC+7, so there is no internal time difference anywhere in the country.
Does Thailand change its clocks for summer?
No. The offset is fixed, and any change in the difference between Thailand and your country comes from your country's own daylight saving.
What is the year 2568 on a Thai document?
It is a Buddhist Era year. Subtract 543 to get the Common Era equivalent. This affects dates, not the time of day.

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