Time zone · Asia
IST
India Standard Time
India Standard Time (IST) unifies clocks across South Asia under a steady UTC+05:30 offset with India and Sri Lanka, meaning the sun hits the ground an unusual half-hour past the diagonal—ideal for coordinating bustling metros and monsoon schedules alike.
Sunday, May 31, 2026
Current offset
UTC+05:30
Standard · +0530
Daylight saving
Not observed
Year-round standard time
IANA zones
2
None observe daylight saving
DST offset
—
No summer variant
About IST
A fixed, year-round offset.
India Standard Time (IST) unifies clocks across South Asia under a steady UTC+05:30 offset with India and Sri Lanka, meaning the sun hits the ground an unusual half-hour past the diagonal—ideal for coordinating bustling metros and monsoon schedules alike.
IANA zones · the technical identifiers
The 2 zones that resolve to IST.
For software, always store the IANA identifier — never the abbreviation alone. The database keeps these zones distinct because their rules can, and historically did, diverge.
Cities currently on IST
The same hour, city by city.
3 cities · all UTC+05:30
Where IST is used
2 countries.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about IST, daylight saving, and how to handle it in software. Can't find what you need? Email [email protected].
- Why does India Standard Time sit at the oddball +05:30 offset?
- During the British era each major city kept solar time at its own meridian; in 1947 the newly independent India picked the +5:30 meridian near Allahabad as a midpoint between its eastern and western cities
- Do any IST regions switch to daylight saving?
- Neither India nor Sri Lanka use daylight saving today, so IST stays fixed year-round and keeps scheduling simple across the subcontinent
- Is India Standard Time the same as Sri Lankan Time?
- Yes—Sri Lanka Time was renamed from Colombo Mean Time to match India's +05:30 back in 2006 to align trade and broadcasting between the neighbors
- Does the whole subcontinent really live on a single offset?
- Pretty much: from Gujarat's deserts to Assam's tea gardens clocks read the same, though eastern states use unofficial daylight-time habits and Nepal opts for its own +05:45
- Is there an alternate abbreviation for India Standard Time?
- Informally people write IST, IT or simply +05:30 to avoid confusion with Irish Standard Time and Israel Standard Time which share the same letters
- How does IST affect remote work with Western teams?
- Colombo lines up nine-and-a-half hours ahead of New York and ten-and-a-half ahead of London in winter, turning late-evening calls into next-morning replies for many collaborators
- Why did India stay at +05:30 instead of picking a neater hour?
- Shifting the clocks would have meant the sun rising before 4:30 in the east and setting after 19:30 in the west, so officials kept the comfortable middle ground
- What is the biggest practical upside of IST's half-hour offset?
- It lets eastern and western workdays overlap nicely without one end waking up too early, easing stock-market openings, cricket schedules and Bollywood release times
- Is Nepal's unique +05:45 offset related to India Standard Time?
- Absolutely—in 1986 Kathmandu nudged 15 minutes ahead of IST to highlight national distinction and better align sunrise with the Himalayan valley of Kathmandu
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