Time in Adelaide

About this time zone

Adelaide is one of the 12 time zone areas of Australia. Computers and phones know it by the zone name Australia/Adelaide. Its time is UTC+10:30 in January and UTC+9:30 in July, because the clocks are changed during the year. The short names used for this time are ACDT and ACST. Compared with India (IST), it is 5 hours ahead of India in January and 4 hours ahead of India in July.

Clock changes in 2026 and 2027

Adelaide 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 Adelaide stay forward for 182 days, from 4 October 2026 to 4 April 2027. That is about 26 weeks, or 50% of a year, on UTC+10:30 and the rest on UTC+9:30. The forward period runs across the new year, because summer in the southern half of the world falls in December and January.

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 Adelaide

A time zone is an agreement, and the sun does not follow it exactly. Adelaide, the largest city in this zone, lies at about 138.6° east. Each degree of longitude is worth four minutes, so by the sun alone its time would be about 9 hours 14 minutes ahead of UTC. The clock is set to UTC+9:30. The sun is therefore highest in the sky at about 12:16 pm by the clock on standard time, and at about 1:16 pm while the clocks are moved (UTC+10:30). 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 Adelaide, 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

Adelaide is about 34.9° south of the equator. On the longest day of the year, around 21 December, the sun is up for about 14 hours 30 minutes. On the shortest, around 21 June, for about 9 hours 48 minutes. That swing of about 4 hours 42 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 Adelaide.

• With India, in January: 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm here, which is 9:00 am to 1:00 pm in India (4 hours shared). In July: 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm here, which is 9:00 am to 2:00 pm in India (5 hours shared).
• With London, in January: no shared office hour: 9:00 am here is 10:30 pm in London, and 6:00 pm here is 7:30 am there, so one side has to start early or stay late. In July: 5:30 pm to 6:00 pm here, which is 9:00 am to 9:30 am in London (30 minutes shared).
• With New York, in January: 9:00 am to 9:30 am here, which is 5:30 pm to 6:00 pm in New York (30 minutes shared). In July: no shared office hour: 9:00 am here is 7:30 pm in New York, and 6:00 pm here is 4:30 am there, so one side has to start early or stay late.

How many people keep this time

The GeoNames list has 6 towns and cities of 15,000 people or more in this zone area, with about 1.6 million 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: Adelaide, Adelaide Hills, Mount Gambier, Mount Barker, Whyalla, Gawler.

Places with exactly the same time

These zones show the same time as Adelaide through the whole year: Broken Hill, Australia.

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.