Time in Wales
Wales keeps Greenwich Mean Time in winter and British Summer Time in summer, the same clock as the rest of the United Kingdom. What changes across the country is the daylight.
Wales (Europe/London)
00:00:00
Shown for Cardiff. Every Welsh town keeps identical clock time.
Sunrise
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Local time
Sunset
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Local time
UTC now
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Coordinated Universal Time
Your zone
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UTC
Same as you
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Relative to your device
Daylight today
Sunrise and sunset across Wales
Same clock, different sky. Ordered by length of daylight today, the spread between the north-west coast and the eastern border is larger than most people expect.
| Town | Sunrise | Sunset | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|
| CardiffCaerdydd | |||
| SwanseaAbertawe | |||
| NewportCasnewydd | |||
| WrexhamWrecsam | |||
| Bangor | |||
| St DavidsTyddewi | |||
| Aberystwyth | |||
| Llandudno | |||
| Caernarfon | |||
| Merthyr TydfilMerthyr Tudful | |||
| BarryY Barri | |||
| BridgendPen-y-bont ar Ogwr | |||
| NeathCastell-nedd | |||
| Port Talbot | |||
| CwmbranCwmbrân | |||
| Pontypridd | |||
| RhylY Rhyl | |||
| Colwyn BayBae Colwyn | |||
| HaverfordwestHwlffordd | |||
| CarmarthenCaerfyrddin | |||
| Llanelli | |||
| NewtownY Drenewydd | |||
| BreconAberhonddu | |||
| Conwy | |||
| MonmouthTrefynwy |
Welsh towns and cities
- CardiffCaerdydd
- SwanseaAbertawe
- NewportCasnewydd
- WrexhamWrecsam
- Bangor
- St DavidsTyddewi
- Aberystwyth
- Llandudno
- Caernarfon
- Merthyr TydfilMerthyr Tudful
- BarryY Barri
- BridgendPen-y-bont ar Ogwr
- NeathCastell-nedd
- Port Talbot
- CwmbranCwmbrân
- Pontypridd
- RhylY Rhyl
- Colwyn BayBae Colwyn
- HaverfordwestHwlffordd
- CarmarthenCaerfyrddin
- Llanelli
- NewtownY Drenewydd
- BreconAberhonddu
- Conwy
- MonmouthTrefynwy
Welsh time explained
GMT and BST
Greenwich Mean Time is the baseline the rest of the world is measured against, and it runs through the UK. From the last Sunday in October to the last Sunday in March, Wales is on GMT, which is UTC+0, the same as Coordinated Universal Time. For the remaining seven months the country moves to British Summer Time, UTC+1.
The two are often confused. GMT is a time zone; UTC is the atomic time standard the zone is defined against. In everyday use across Wales they are interchangeable, but a flight schedule or a server log quoting UTC in July is an hour behind the local clock, which catches people out.
Why daylight differs across the country
Clock time is uniform but the sun is not. Wales stretches from about 5.3 degrees west at St Davids to 2.7 degrees west at Monmouth. Since the earth turns fifteen degrees an hour, that spread is worth roughly ten minutes of sunrise and sunset difference. Latitude matters too: Bangor and Llandudno sit nearly two degrees north of Cardiff, which makes almost no difference at the equinoxes but adds around twenty-five minutes of daylight at midsummer and takes a similar amount away in December.
Comparing Wales with the rest of the world
Wales is five hours ahead of New York, eight ahead of Los Angeles, four and a half hours behind Mumbai, nine behind Tokyo and ten or eleven behind Sydney depending on the season. See the full comparison for Cardiff and New York, Cardiff and Sydney or Cardiff and Tokyo.
Welsh time, common questions
- What time is it in Wales right now?
- The clock on this page shows live Welsh time. Wales uses the Europe/London time zone, Greenwich Mean Time (UTC+0) in winter and British Summer Time (UTC+1) in summer, so it is always the same clock time as London, Edinburgh and Belfast.
- Is Wales the same time as England?
- Yes, exactly the same. Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland all share Europe/London and change their clocks at the same instant. There has never been a separate Welsh time zone.
- Does the sun set at the same time across Wales?
- No. Although the clock is identical everywhere, Wales spans roughly 2.5 degrees of longitude and 2 degrees of latitude. The sun sets at St Davids in Pembrokeshire around eight to ten minutes after it sets in Monmouth on the English border, and Bangor in the north has noticeably longer summer evenings than Cardiff.
- When do the clocks change in Wales?
- Clocks go forward one hour on the last Sunday in March at 1:00am, and back one hour on the last Sunday in October at 2:00am. These are UK-wide changes set by the Summer Time Act, and they happen at the same moment across the European Union.
- What is the time difference between Wales and New York?
- Wales is normally five hours ahead of New York. For one week each autumn and about three weeks each spring the gap narrows to four hours, because the UK and the United States do not change their clocks on the same dates.