Time in Anchorage

About this time zone

Anchorage is one of the 29 time zone areas of the United States. Computers and phones know it by the zone name America/Anchorage. Its time is UTC−9 in January and UTC−8 in July, because the clocks are changed during the year. The short names used for this time are AKST and AKDT. Compared with India (IST), it is 14 hours 30 minutes behind India in January and 13 hours 30 minutes behind India in July.

Clock changes in 2026 and 2027

Anchorage changes its clocks during the year. These are the changes for 2026 and 2027, worked out from the rules in the IANA time zone database.

Governments sometimes change these rules at short notice. Check an official source before fixing travel or meetings far ahead.

Counting from those dates, the clocks in Anchorage stay forward for 237 days, from 8 March 2026 to 1 November 2026. That is about 34 weeks, or 65% of a year, on UTC−8 and the rest on UTC−9.

Time difference with major cities

The table uses the offsets in force in mid January and mid July 2026. Use the converter for any other date.

Clock time and sun time in Anchorage

A time zone is an agreement, and the sun does not follow it exactly. Anchorage, the largest city in this zone, lies at about 149.9° west. Each degree of longitude is worth four minutes, so by the sun alone its time would be about 10 hours behind UTC. The clock is set to UTC−9. The sun is therefore highest in the sky at about 1:00 pm by the clock on standard time, and at about 2:00 pm while the clocks are moved (UTC−8). The clock runs ahead of the sun here, which means later sunrises and lighter evenings than the map alone would give. Other places in the zone, to the east or west of Anchorage, see the sun peak a little earlier or later. Through the year the figure also drifts by up to a quarter of an hour either way.

How long the day is

Anchorage is about 61.2° north of the equator. On the longest day of the year, around 21 June, the sun is up for about 19 hours 22 minutes. On the shortest, around 21 December, for about 5 hours 27 minutes. That swing of about 13 hours 56 minutes between summer and winter is the reason clocks are moved here: the extra summer daylight is shifted from the early morning to the evening.

Office hours shared with other places

If both sides work from 9 am to 6 pm, these are the hours when a call falls inside the working day at both ends. Times are for Anchorage.

• With India, in January: no shared office hour: 9:00 am here is 11:30 pm in India, and 6:00 pm here is 8:30 am there, so one side has to start early or stay late. In July: no shared office hour: 9:00 am here is 10:30 pm in India, and 6:00 pm here is 7:30 am there, so one side has to start early or stay late.
• With London, all year: no shared office hour: 9:00 am here is 6:00 pm in London, and 6:00 pm here is 3:00 am there, so one side has to start early or stay late.
• With New York, all year: 9:00 am to 2:00 pm here, which is 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm in New York (5 hours shared).

How many people keep this time

The GeoNames list has 4 towns and cities of 15,000 people or more in this zone area, with about 366,000 people between them. People in villages and smaller towns are not in that count, so the true number on this clock is higher.

Cities that keep this time

The largest cities in this zone: Anchorage, Fairbanks, Eagle River, Badger.

Places with exactly the same time

These zones show the same time as Anchorage through the whole year: Juneau, United States.

The clock above uses your device's clock and the time zone rules built into your browser. Rules on this page: IANA time zone database 2026f. See About and data sources.