Americas · North America · Dependency
Current time in United States Minor Outlying Islands
Spans 2 time zones from UTC-11:00 to UTC+12:00, a 23-hour difference.
Saturday, May 30, 2026
About United States Minor Outlying Islands's time
2 time zones.
The U.S. Minor Outlying Islands span a vast swath of the Pacific, producing an unusual situation: two islands in the same country are nearly a full day apart in wall-clock time at any given moment.
By time zone
Time zones of United States Minor Outlying Islands.
2 time zones
History
How United States Minor Outlying Islands keeps time.
The U.S. Minor Outlying Islands' time zones reflect their strategic locations across the Pacific rather than any single historical act of coordination.
Wake Island, entirely west of the International Date Line, settled on UTC+12:00 to align with nearby state-like entities such as the Marshall Islands and Nauru. Midway, well east of the Date Line, long used UTC−11:00, aligning with nearby U.S. interests such as Hawaii and American Samoa. Both islands have effectively operated on these offsets without daylight saving time, as their small, mostly military or administrative populations made more complex timekeeping unnecessary.
Because the islands' governance and record-keeping have been handled with minimal public-facing detail, there are no well-documented, signature "time zone change" moments comparable to larger sovereign states. The current IANA zones (Pacific/Midway and Pacific/Wake) simply stabilize long-standing de facto practice rather than recording dramatic adjustments.
Did you know?
Things about United States Minor Outlying Islands's time.
The U.S. Minor Outlying Islands illustrate how the International Date Line splits time into a 24-hour leap rather than a mere hour-by-hour shift.
Midway (UTC−11:00) and Wake (UTC+12:00) have a 23-hour difference in standard time. That means it is always "almost a full day earlier" on Midway than on Wake: when it is 1:00 AM on Monday on Wake, it is 2:00 AM on Sunday on Midway. A traveler zipping between them could experience a calendar-day rollback without crossing much ocean.
Both islands skip daylight saving time entirely. Their limited or absent permanent civilian populations mean local daily life is not tied to broader "clock-shifting" schedules. For remote workers and logistics planners, the key insight is that these islands never spring forward or fall back—what you see is what you get all year.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about United States Minor Outlying Islands's time zone, daylight saving rules, and how to handle it in software. Can't find what you need? Email [email protected].
- How many time zones do the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands use?
- They use two: Midway follows Pacific/Midway (UTC−11:00, SST), and Wake follows Pacific/Wake (UTC+12:00).
- Is there daylight saving time on any of the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands?
- No. Neither Midway nor Wake observes daylight saving time; both use their standard offsets year-round.
- How far apart are Midway and Wake in terms of time?
- They differ by 23 hours in standard time. When it is, for example, 12:00 PM on Wednesday on Wake (UTC+12:00), it is 1:00 PM on Tuesday on Midway (UTC−11:00).
- Do the islands observe different dates at the same instant?
- Yes. Because the two zones lie on opposite sides of the International Date Line, they are on the same clock time only for about one hour out of 24; the rest of the day, their calendar dates differ.
- What abbreviation is used for time in these islands?
- Midway uses SST (Samoa Standard Time, UTC−11:00), while Wake uses UTC+12:00 without a widely used single letter abbreviation; in practice it just shows as GMT+12 in many systems.
- Should I account for daylight saving shifts when scheduling with someone on these islands?
- No. None of the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands change clocks during the year, so the time difference to the rest of the world stays constant.
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