What time is it in London?
Quick answer
London uses Greenwich Mean Time (GMT, UTC+0) in winter and British Summer Time (BST, UTC+1) in summer. The clocks go forward one hour on the last Sunday of March and back on the last Sunday of October. The live clock below shows the time in London right now.
London, United Kingdom
--:--
GMT or BST?
| Period | Name | Offset |
|---|---|---|
| Last Sunday of October → last Sunday of March | Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) | UTC+0 |
| Last Sunday of March → last Sunday of October | British Summer Time (BST) | UTC+1 |
The changes happen at 1 a.m., which is why people in the UK say “spring forward, fall back.” The whole of the UK, including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, uses the same time.
Why “Greenwich”?
The Royal Observatory in Greenwich, in southeast London, sits on the prime meridian, the line of 0° longitude. In 1884, an international conference chose Greenwich as the starting point for measuring longitude and time around the world. Visitors can stand with one foot in each hemisphere on the meridian line in the observatory courtyard.
Today, the world’s time standard is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), kept by atomic clocks, but GMT and UTC are effectively the same for everyday purposes.
London vs other cities
When it’s noon in London in winter:
- New York: 7 a.m.
- Los Angeles: 4 a.m.
- Berlin and Paris: 1 p.m.
- New Delhi: 5:30 p.m.
- Tokyo: 9 p.m.
The US and UK change their clocks on different dates, so for a few weeks each spring and autumn the gap with New York is 4 hours instead of the usual 5.
Most of mainland Europe is one hour ahead of London. Here’s what time it is in Germany.
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