Time zone · Africa
SAST
South Africa Standard Time
South Africa Standard Time (SAST) is UTC+02:00 all year and is used in South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini. There is no daylight saving time, so clocks stay the same from Cape Town to Maseru and Mbabane.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Current offset
UTC+02:00
Standard · SAST
Daylight saving
Not observed
Year-round standard time
IANA zones
3
None observe daylight saving
DST offset
—
No summer variant
About SAST
A fixed, year-round offset.
South Africa Standard Time (SAST) is UTC+02:00 all year and is used in South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini. There is no daylight saving time, so clocks stay the same from Cape Town to Maseru and Mbabane.
IANA zones · the technical identifiers
The 3 zones that resolve to SAST.
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 across SAST
Local time, city by city.
14 cities
Where SAST is used
3 countries.
Same offset · UTC+02:00
Other zones at UTC+02:00 right now.
These named zones share SAST's offset today. When daylight saving rules differ, they drift apart for part of the year.
Convert
SAST to the world's clocks.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about SAST, daylight saving, and how to handle it in software. Can't find what you need? Email [email protected].
- Do we spring forward or fall back in SAST?
- No—daylight saving has been absent here since 1944, so the clocks stay put all year.
- Are all three SAST twins keeping pace?
- South Africa, Lesotho, and Eswatini share one unchanging clock.
- What time zone do Johannesburg and Cape Town use?
- Both use South Africa Standard Time, UTC+02:00. South Africa has a single time zone, so every city in the country shows the same time.
- How far is South Africa from London?
- Two hours ahead in the northern winter, when the UK is on GMT, and one hour ahead in summer, when the UK is on British Summer Time (UTC+01:00).
- Is SAST the same as Central Africa Time?
- They share the same offset. Central Africa Time is also UTC+02:00 all year, in countries such as Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique, so their clocks always match South Africa’s.
Source: IANA tzdb2026d · Reviewed
Free · Developer API
This time zone, as JSON.
Its defining offset, DST status and member counts, from one endpoint.
Also in the API: time zones by coordinates, conversions that flag daylight saving gaps, and abbreviations decoded.
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