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Europe/Istanbul time zone

5:01PMUTC+3

UTC+3UTC+3+8 h vs New York (you)

No transitions: Europe/Istanbul stays on UTC+3.

About Europe/Istanbul

Europe/Istanbul is the IANA time zone for Turkey. It currently keeps UTC+3 all year.

Its principal location is Istanbul at 41.02° N, 28.97° E.

Rule for future years (POSIX TZ string)

<+03>-3

The standard time is called “+03” (a numeric abbreviation) and is UTC+3. POSIX writes the offset with the opposite sign (west of Greenwich is positive), which is why the string says "-3". There is no daylight saving rule: the zone stays on this offset for every year after the end of its explicit transitions. Software that has no full tzdata copy, such as many embedded devices, can use this string directly as the TZ environment variable.

History of Europe/Istanbul since 1970

The record starts with local mean time (UTC+1:56), which ended on January 1, 1880. The first daylight saving time in the record is in 1916.

YearsClocksAbbreviations
1970–1972UTC+2 all yearEET
1973–1977UTC+2 in winter, UTC+3 in summerEET, EEST
1978UTC+2 until April 2, then UTC+3EET, EEST
1979–1982UTC+3 all year—
1983mostly UTC+3; also UTC+4 for part of the year—
1984UTC+3 until November 1, then UTC+2EET
1985–2015UTC+2 in winter, UTC+3 in summerEET, EEST
2016UTC+2 until March 27, then UTC+3EET, EEST
2017 onwardUTC+3 all year—

Before 1970

36 offset changes before 1970 in the record; the first 12 and the last 12:

Changes of the winter (standard) offset: Sunday, April 2, 1978, UTC+2 → UTC+3; Thursday, November 1, 1984, UTC+3 → UTC+2; Sunday, March 27, 2016, UTC+2 → UTC+3.

tzdata commits to accuracy from 1970 for every zone (zone1970.tab); earlier entries are historical research and may be incomplete.

Aliases and zones with the same clock

These older or country-specific IDs are links to Europe/Istanbul in tzdata. Their pages redirect here: Asia/Istanbul, Turkey.

Other zones that keep exactly the same time under the current rules (but have a different history): Africa/Nairobi, Asia/Amman, Asia/Baghdad, Asia/Damascus, Asia/Qatar, Asia/Riyadh, Europe/Kirov, Europe/Minsk, Europe/Moscow, Europe/Simferopol, Europe/Volgograd.

Places on Europe/Istanbul

Convert Istanbul time

Tip: Alt+↑/↓ steps the time by 15 minutes (Shift: one hour). The link keeps the date, time and direction.

Using Europe/Istanbul in code

Every major platform reads the same IANA ID. Store instants in UTC and convert with the ID at display time; never store a fixed offset for a place that has daylight saving time.

// JavaScript
new Date().toLocaleString('en-US', { timeZone: 'Europe/Istanbul' })

# Python 3.9+
from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo
from datetime import datetime
datetime.now(ZoneInfo('Europe/Istanbul'))

// Java
java.time.ZonedDateTime.now(java.time.ZoneId.of("Europe/Istanbul"))

// Go
loc, _ := time.LoadLocation("Europe/Istanbul")
time.Now().In(loc)

-- PostgreSQL
SELECT now() AT TIME ZONE 'Europe/Istanbul';

# Shell
TZ='Europe/Istanbul' date

Platforms ship their own copy of tzdata and update it on their own schedule. After a rule change, outputs can differ until the platform updates; this page uses tzdata 2026f.

Questions

What is the UTC offset of Europe/Istanbul?
UTC+3 all year.
Does Europe/Istanbul observe daylight saving time?
No, not under the current rules. The last year with daylight saving time in its record is 2016.
Is Asia/Istanbul the same as Europe/Istanbul?
Yes. Asia/Istanbul and Turkey are a link (alias) to Europe/Istanbul in tzdata and give the same time since 1970. They remain valid IDs.
Which countries use Europe/Istanbul?
Turkey, according to zone1970.tab in tzdata.

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