CET time now (Central European Time)

What CET means

CET stands for Central European Time, UTC+1. It is used in most of continental Europe, plus Algeria and Tunisia.

It is a standard (winter) time. Places on CET that observe daylight saving time switch to CEST (UTC+2) in summer, so CET is a fixed offset while the local clock is not.

CET, CEST and the EU rules

CET (UTC+1) is the winter time of most of continental Europe; CEST (UTC+2) is the summer time. Under Directive 2000/84/EC, summer time in every EU country begins at 1:00 a.m. GMT on the last Sunday in March and ends at 1:00 a.m. GMT on the last Sunday in October. Because the instant is fixed in GMT, Paris, Berlin, Madrid and Warsaw change at the same moment: 2:00 CET becomes 3:00 CEST.

The European Commission proposed ending seasonal changes in 2018 and the Parliament supported it in 2019, but the Council has not adopted a position (European Commission), so the changes continue.

The zone is wide. Spain lies mostly west of Greenwich but uses CET, so its clocks run more than an hour ahead of the sun in the west and the sun sets late; Poland, at the eastern edge, has early sunrises. Algeria and Tunisia use CET all year without summer time.

Where and when CET is used

2 zones use CET all year. 16 zones use it for part of the year only, switching to daylight saving time in the other months. Computed from tzdata under the current rules.

How long CET has been used

In the tzdata record, Belgrade has used CET since 1883, Budapest has used CET since 1890 and Prague has used CET since 1891.

CET in the past

Zones whose tzdata history shows CET before 2025 but that no longer use it:

• Africa/Tripoli (Tripoli): 1919–2013
• Europe/Vilnius (Vilnius): 1919–1999
• Europe/Lisbon (Lisbon): 1966–1996
• Europe/Kaliningrad (Kaliningrad): 1893–1945
• Europe/Sofia (Sofia): 1942–1945
• Europe/Tallinn (Tallinn): 1918–1944
• Europe/Athens (Athens): 1942–1944
• Europe/Chisinau (Chisinau): 1942–1944
• Europe/Minsk (Minsk): 1942–1944
• Europe/Riga (Riga): 1942–1944
• Europe/Simferopol (Sevastopol): 1942–1944
• Europe/Kyiv (Kyiv): 1942–1943

CET converted to other zones

Every column is a fixed offset, so this table is valid on any date. Remember that the regions behind some columns switch to summer time (EST to EDT, CET to CEST, GMT to BST); the clock in those cities is then an hour later than the column.

Related zones and conversions

• CEST time
• Europe/Paris time zone
• UTC+1 time
• CET to EST
• CET to UTC
• UTC to CET
• Time zones of the world
• Daylight saving time
• Time zone converter