Europe/Simferopol time zone
7:01PMMSK
MSKUTC+3+8 h vs New York (you)
No transitions: Europe/Simferopol stays on MSK (UTC+3).
About Europe/Simferopol
Europe/Simferopol is the IANA time zone for Crimea in Russia and Ukraine. It currently keeps Moscow Standard Time (MSK, UTC+3) all year.
The zone serves 2 countries or territories because their clocks have agreed since 1970; tzdata lists them together in zone1970.tab. That says nothing about borders or sovereignty, as the file’s header points out.
Its principal location is Simferopol at 44.95° N, 34.10° E.
Abbreviations in use: MSK. Offset page: UTC+3.
Rule for future years (POSIX TZ string)
MSK-3
The standard time is called MSK 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/Simferopol since 1970
The record starts with local mean time (UTC+2:16), which ended on December 31, 1879. The first daylight saving time in the record is in 1941.
| Years | Clocks | Abbreviations |
|---|---|---|
| 1970–1980 | UTC+3 all year | MSK |
| 1981–1989 | UTC+3 in winter, UTC+4 in summer | MSK, MSD |
| 1990 | UTC+3 until July 1, then UTC+2 | MSK, EET |
| 1991 | UTC+2 all year | EET |
| 1992–1993 | UTC+2 in winter, UTC+3 in summer | EET, EEST |
| 1994 | UTC+2 in winter, UTC+4 in summer; also UTC+3 for part of the year | EET, EEST, MSD, MSK |
| 1995–1996 | UTC+3 in winter, UTC+4 in summer | MSK, MSD |
| 1997 | UTC+3 until October 26, then UTC+2 | MSK, EEST, EET |
| 1998–2013 | UTC+2 in winter, UTC+3 in summer | EET, EEST |
| 2014 | UTC+2 in winter, UTC+4 in summer; also UTC+3 for part of the year | EET, MSK |
| 2015 onward | UTC+3 all year | MSK |
Before 1970
8 offset changes before 1970 in the record:
- Friday, May 2, 1924: UTC+2:16 → UTC+2 (EET)
- Saturday, June 21, 1930: UTC+2 → UTC+3 (MSK)
- Saturday, November 1, 1941: UTC+3 → UTC+2 (CEST), daylight saving time
- Monday, November 2, 1942: UTC+2 → UTC+1 (CET)
- Monday, March 29, 1943: UTC+1 → UTC+2 (CEST), daylight saving time
- Monday, October 4, 1943: UTC+2 → UTC+1 (CET)
- Monday, April 3, 1944: UTC+1 → UTC+2 (CEST), daylight saving time
- Thursday, April 13, 1944: UTC+2 → UTC+3 (MSK)
Changes of the winter (standard) offset: Sunday, July 1, 1990, UTC+3 → UTC+2; Sunday, March 27, 1994, UTC+2 → UTC+3; Sunday, May 1, 1994, UTC+3 → UTC+3; Sunday, October 26, 1997, UTC+3 → UTC+2; Sunday, March 30, 2014, UTC+2 → UTC+4; Sunday, October 26, 2014, UTC+4 → 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
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/Istanbul, Europe/Kirov, Europe/Minsk, Europe/Moscow, Europe/Volgograd.
Convert Simferopol time
Using Europe/Simferopol 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/Simferopol' })
# Python 3.9+
from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo
from datetime import datetime
datetime.now(ZoneInfo('Europe/Simferopol'))
// Java
java.time.ZonedDateTime.now(java.time.ZoneId.of("Europe/Simferopol"))
// Go
loc, _ := time.LoadLocation("Europe/Simferopol")
time.Now().In(loc)
-- PostgreSQL
SELECT now() AT TIME ZONE 'Europe/Simferopol';
# Shell
TZ='Europe/Simferopol' datePlatforms 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.