What time is it in Australia right now?
The clock above shows the current time in Canberra, the national capital, calculated from your own device clock. Australia is not one clock: the mainland spans three standard zones, so when it is midday in Sydney it is 11:30 am in Adelaide and 10 am in Perth. Pick the city you actually need on the world clock page.
Time zones and daylight saving
The eastern states keep Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST, UTC+10) and move to Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT, UTC+11) from the first Sunday in October to the first Sunday in April — the southern-hemisphere summer, not the northern one. Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory do not change their clocks at all, which is why the gap between Brisbane and Sydney appears and disappears twice a year. South Australia and the Northern Territory sit half an hour behind the eastern zone, on UTC+9:30.
Canberra is the seat of government and the reference point used on this page, and it keeps the same time as Sydney and Melbourne. Across the Tasman, New Zealand runs two hours ahead of AEST; to the north, Singapore and Perth share UTC+8.
What else is on this site?
Australia is one of the few countries spread across enough longitude to run three time zones at once, which is exactly why "what time is it in Australia" is a genuinely confusing question rather than a lazy one. This page shows the current time in Canberra, on Australian Eastern Standard Time, updating every second so you can trust it at a glance without doing your own maths.
The three zones are Eastern Standard Time (AEST, UTC+10), Central Standard Time (ACST, UTC+9:30) and Western Standard Time (AWST, UTC+8). New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT sit on AEST. South Australia and the Northern Territory run on ACST, half an hour behind the east coast. Western Australia trails the eastern states by two full hours on AWST.
Daylight saving splits the country further
From the first Sunday in October to the first Sunday in April, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, the ACT and South Australia move their clocks forward an hour onto daylight saving time, becoming AEDT and ACDT respectively. Because Australia sits in the Southern Hemisphere, this overlaps with summer in December and January, not June, which trips up anyone used to a Northern Hemisphere calendar.
- Queensland stays on AEST all year and never adjusts its clocks
- Western Australia stays on AWST all year, with no daylight saving
- The Northern Territory stays on ACST all year
- New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, the ACT and South Australia switch twice a year
That split means the gap between, say, Brisbane and Sydney is nothing for most of the year but jumps to a full hour during daylight saving, since Queensland doesn't follow the shift. The clock above reflects Canberra's current offset automatically, adjusting itself the moment daylight saving starts or ends so you never have to remember the date.
Common questions
What time is it in Australia right now?
It depends on which state — check the clock above for Canberra and Sydney's time on AEST/AEDT, then adjust by the offsets in this article if you need Perth, Adelaide or Darwin.
Why does Australia have three time zones?
The country spans roughly 4,000 kilometres of longitude, more than enough to justify a two-hour spread from Perth to Sydney, so the states settled on AWST, ACST and AEST rather than one time for the whole continent.
Does Queensland observe daylight saving time?
No. Queensland, along with Western Australia and the Northern Territory, keeps the same clock all year and does not move to daylight saving in October.
What's the time difference between Sydney and Perth?
Normally two hours, with Perth behind. During daylight saving in the eastern states the gap widens to three hours, since Western Australia doesn't shift its clocks.
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