UTC to IST
India Standard Time is always 5 hours 30 minutes ahead of UTC: 09:00 UTC is 2:30 PM in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru on every day of the year. India does not observe daylight saving, so this conversion never changes.
Why India sits on a half hour
India uses a single time zone for the whole country, set by the 82.5° E meridian that passes near Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh. That line is exactly 5½ hours from Greenwich, which gives the half-hour offset. Sri Lanka uses the same UTC+5:30, while Nepal goes a step further at UTC+5:45. In the far northeast the sun rises well before 5:00 AM in summer, and tea gardens in Assam have long kept an unofficial "tea garden time" an hour ahead.
Because the offset is permanent, the conversion is easy to memorize: 00:00 UTC is 5:30 AM IST, 12:00 UTC is 5:30 PM, and 18:30 UTC is midnight. A UTC time after 18:30 is already the next day in India.
UTC to IST conversion table
Every hour of the day, using today's offsets (daylight saving is applied automatically).
| UTC | IST |
|---|---|
| 12:00 AM | 5:30 AM |
| 1:00 AM | 6:30 AM |
| 2:00 AM | 7:30 AM |
| 3:00 AM | 8:30 AM |
| 4:00 AM | 9:30 AM |
| 5:00 AM | 10:30 AM |
| 6:00 AM | 11:30 AM |
| 7:00 AM | 12:30 PM |
| 8:00 AM | 1:30 PM |
| 9:00 AM | 2:30 PM |
| 10:00 AM | 3:30 PM |
| 11:00 AM | 4:30 PM |
| UTC | IST |
|---|---|
| 12:00 PM | 5:30 PM |
| 1:00 PM | 6:30 PM |
| 2:00 PM | 7:30 PM |
| 3:00 PM | 8:30 PM |
| 4:00 PM | 9:30 PM |
| 5:00 PM | 10:30 PM |
| 6:00 PM | 11:30 PM |
| 7:00 PM | 12:30 AM+1 |
| 8:00 PM | 1:30 AM+1 |
| 9:00 PM | 2:30 AM+1 |
| 10:00 PM | 3:30 AM+1 |
| 11:00 PM | 4:30 AM+1 |
Working hours that overlap (9:00–17:00 on both sides)
UTC 6 PM–9 PM
Daylight saving time
- Coordinated Universal TimeUTC
No daylight saving; all year UTC+0
Worldwide reference
- India Standard TimeIST
No daylight saving; all year UTC+5:30
India
Three zones called IST
"IST" also stands for Israel Standard Time (UTC+2) and Irish Standard Time, the name Ireland legally uses for its summer clock (UTC+1). A log line marked IST from an unknown server could therefore be off by several hours. Indian engineers who run systems for global clients usually keep servers on UTC and convert only in the user interface.
For India's relationship with other zones that do change their clocks, start with IST to EST or IST to GMT, where the difference moves twice a year.
Other conversions with these zones
Frequently asked questions
- What time is 00:00 UTC in India?
- 5:30 AM IST on the same date.
- Does India ever switch to daylight saving time?
- No. India briefly used advanced clocks during wartime in the 1940s and 1960s, but has kept UTC+5:30 all year since then.
- At what UTC time does a new day start in India?
- At 18:30 UTC, which is midnight IST.
- Is IST the same as Sri Lanka time?
- Yes. Sri Lanka also uses UTC+5:30. Nepal is 15 minutes ahead at UTC+5:45.
- How do I convert 14:45 UTC to IST?
- Add 5 hours 30 minutes: 14:45 UTC is 8:15 PM IST.