Coordinated Universal Time is the time standard the world sets its clocks by. It is kept by a network of atomic clocks and occasionally adjusted with leap seconds so that it stays close to the rotation of the Earth. Servers, flight plans, weather reports and scientific data are usually written in UTC because it means the same thing everywhere.
UTC and GMT
For an ordinary clock, UTC and Greenwich Mean Time show the same time. The difference is what they are: GMT is a time zone used by the UK in winter and by several countries all year, while UTC is the scientific standard behind every time zone. In technical contexts, “UTC” is the correct term.
Don’t confuse UTC with UK time: London switches to British Summer Time (UTC+1) from late March to late October.
Reading UTC offsets
An offset such as UTC+4 means local clocks are four hours ahead of UTC (Dubai); UTC−5 means five hours behind (New York in winter). Some offsets include minutes, such as UTC+5:30 in India and UTC+5:45 in Nepal.
In timestamps you will often see the ISO 8601 form, for example 2026-11-10T14:00:00Z — the trailing Z means the time is in UTC.
Daylight saving time
UTC has no daylight saving time. When countries change their clocks, their offset from UTC changes — UTC itself stays the same all year.
Zulu time and military time zones
In aviation, shipping and the military, UTC is called Zulu time: “Z” is the letter for the zero offset, so a weather report issued at 1400Z was issued at 14:00 UTC. Every whole-hour offset has its own letter; J (Juliett) means the observer’s local time.
| Letter | Name | Offset |
|---|---|---|
| Z | Zulu | UTC+0 |
| A | Alpha | UTC+1 |
| B | Bravo | UTC+2 |
| C | Charlie | UTC+3 |
| D | Delta | UTC+4 |
| E | Echo | UTC+5 |
| F | Foxtrot | UTC+6 |
| G | Golf | UTC+7 |
| H | Hotel | UTC+8 |
| I | India | UTC+9 |
| K | Kilo | UTC+10 |
| L | Lima | UTC+11 |
| M | Mike | UTC+12 |
| N | November | UTC−1 |
| O | Oscar | UTC−2 |
| P | Papa | UTC−3 |
| Q | Quebec | UTC−4 |
| R | Romeo | UTC−5 |
| S | Sierra | UTC−6 |
| T | Tango | UTC−7 |
| U | Uniform | UTC−8 |
| V | Victor | UTC−9 |
| W | Whiskey | UTC−10 |
| X | X-ray | UTC−11 |
| Y | Yankee | UTC−12 |
| J | Juliett | Observer’s local time |
Example conversions
Calculated from the official time zone rules for two dates, so you can see how daylight saving time affects the result.
Winter example — 15 January 2027
| UTC | New York | London | India | Tokyo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 AM | 04:00 AM | 09:00 AM | 02:30 PM | 06:00 PM |
| 12:00 PM | 07:00 AM | 12:00 PM | 05:30 PM | 09:00 PM |
| 05:00 PM | 12:00 PM | 05:00 PM | 10:30 PM | 02:00 AMnext day |
Summer example — 15 July 2027
| UTC | New York | London | India | Tokyo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 AM | 05:00 AM | 10:00 AM | 02:30 PM | 06:00 PM |
| 12:00 PM | 08:00 AM | 01:00 PM | 05:30 PM | 09:00 PM |
| 05:00 PM | 01:00 PM | 06:00 PM | 10:30 PM | 02:00 AMnext day |