Time in Ho Chi Minh City

Before reunification, North and South Vietnam kept different clocks. The South, with Saigon as its capital, switched to UTC+8 at the end of 1959, while the North used UTC+7. In June 1975, weeks after the war ended, the South moved back one hour to UTC+7, and the whole country has used a single time since. The tz database records the switch on June 13, 1975.

The city lies at about 106.6° east, just east of the 105th meridian on which UTC+7 is based, so the clock and the sun are well matched: solar noon falls around 11:52 to 11:55 AM. Being only 10.8° north of the equator, the city sees day length vary from about 11 hours 29 minutes in December to 12 hours 45 minutes in June. Sunrise ranges from about 5:30 to 6:15 AM, and sunset from about 5:30 to 6:20 PM.

The working day starts early: many offices open at 8:00, government departments at 7:30, and a midday break of an hour or more is common, with work ending around 17:00. Street life begins even earlier, with coffee shops busy before 6:00 AM. The Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) trades in a morning session from 9:00 to 11:30 and an afternoon session from 13:00 to about 14:45.

Ho Chi Minh City is eleven hours ahead of New York from March to November and twelve hours ahead in the US winter, so 8:00 PM in Saigon is 8:00 or 9:00 AM in New York. London is six hours behind in summer and seven in winter, which makes the London morning a good fit for the Vietnamese afternoon. Bangkok shares the same clock, and the time zone converter covers any other pair.