It is 7:46 am in America/Halifax
America/Halifax is the IANA identifier for the time zone of Halifax in Canada. It is running at UTC-3 right now, abbreviated ADT, and the local date is Friday, September 25, 2026. The zone is on its summer offset at the moment.
What time is it in America/Halifax right now
7:46 am on Friday, September 25, 2026, as this page was served, which in 24 hour form is 07:46. The clock above ticks on from there in your own browser. The offset is a whole 3 hours behind UTC, so a UTC timestamp converts here by changing the hour and leaving the minutes exactly as they are.
33 other zones read UTC-3 at this instant. They are interchangeable as a clock reading today and not as an identifier: storing UTC-3 instead of America/Halifax throws away the rule that decides what they all do at the next transition.
The UTC offset of America/Halifax
An offset of UTC-3 names the meridian 45.0 degrees west. Halifax, Canada actually sits at 63.58 degrees west, which is 18.6 degrees west of it, so the sun there runs about 74 minutes behind the clock before daylight saving is even considered. Zone boundaries are drawn by borders and by convenience, not by longitude, and this is the size of the gap that produces.
Because this zone moves its clocks, UTC-3 is only today's answer. It runs at UTC-4 for the winter part of the year and UTC-3 for the summer part, a difference of 1 hour, and any gap memorised against it is wrong for part of the year.
Daylight saving in America/Halifax
America/Halifax does observe daylight saving. The next change is on November 1, 2026: at 1:00 am local the clocks go back, and UTC-3 becomes UTC-4. That hour is repeated, so every reading inside it happens twice, which is why a wall clock time in this zone is not always a single instant.
Every clock change the database has for this zone in 2025, 2026 and 2027, with the exact local reading either side of the jump.
| Date | Clock before | Clock after | Change | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 9, 2025 | 1:59 am | 3:00 am | forward an hour, UTC-4 to UTC-3 | already happened |
| November 2, 2025 | 1:59 am | 1:00 am | back an hour, UTC-3 to UTC-4 | already happened |
| March 8, 2026 | 1:59 am | 3:00 am | forward an hour, UTC-4 to UTC-3 | already happened |
| November 1, 2026 | 1:59 am | 1:00 am | back an hour, UTC-3 to UTC-4 | still to come |
| March 14, 2027 | 1:59 am | 3:00 am | forward an hour, UTC-4 to UTC-3 | still to come |
| November 7, 2027 | 1:59 am | 1:00 am | back an hour, UTC-3 to UTC-4 | still to come |
How the offset of America/Halifax has changed since 1970
Read on 1 January and 1 July of each year, which is the cheapest pair of samples that shows both the winter offset and whether the clocks moved that summer. Nothing has changed: America/Halifax has been on the same pair of readings for all 57 years sampled. A rule change that began and ended between July and the following January is invisible to this sampling, so the table is a shape rather than a complete edit history.
| Years | 1 January | 1 July | Behaviour |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 to 2026 | UTC-4 | UTC-3 | clocks moved, 1 hour apart |
The earliest summer shift this sampling sees here is 1970, and the zone has kept moving its clocks since. The dates the change falls on have moved several times even where the rule has not.
Countries and regions that use America/Halifax
One country uses America/Halifax: Canada, which keeps 23 zones in total and has a population of about 40,100,000.
Cities in the America/Halifax time zone
The 2 cities this site covers inside America/Halifax, each with a live clock and today's sunrise and sunset worked out from its own coordinate. They share an identifier, so they share a clock reading to the minute, and they do not share a sunrise: that is set by latitude and longitude.
| City | Where | Time now | Sunrise | Sunset | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dartmouth | Canada | 7:46 am | 7:05 am | 7:06 pm | 12h 01m |
| Halifax | Canada | 7:46 am | 7:05 am | 7:06 pm | 12h 01m |
The sun against the clock in America/Halifax
Worked out for Halifax, Canada, the city this site covers inside the zone, at 44.65 degrees north, 63.58 degrees west. The sun rises at 7:05 am and sets at 7:06 pm, giving 12 hours 1 minute of daylight. Solar noon, the moment the sun is highest, falls at 1:06 pm, which is 66 minutes after clock noon.
That gap is the whole argument about where zone lines belong, in one number. It is made of three things: Halifax, Canada sitting 18.6 degrees west of the UTC-3 meridian, the equation of time, which today runs 8.4 minutes ahead of mean time, and the hour of daylight saving currently in force. Full sunrise and sunset times for Halifax.
Convert America/Halifax to another time zone
America/Halifax is one of the zones the converter publishes under its own name, as AST, so these pages convert it directly rather than by matching an offset.
Questions about America/Halifax
- What time is it in America/Halifax right now?
- 7:46 am on Friday, September 25, 2026, as this page was served. The clock at the top of the page ticks on from there.
- What is the UTC offset of America/Halifax?
- UTC-3 at this instant, and it alternates between UTC-4 in winter and UTC-3 in summer.
- Does America/Halifax observe daylight saving time?
- Yes. The next change is November 1, 2026, when the clocks go back.
- What is the abbreviation for America/Halifax?
- ADT at this instant. The letters change with the season, because the standard and summer offsets have separate names.
- Which countries use America/Halifax?
- Canada.
- Why store America/Halifax instead of UTC-3?
- Because the offset is an output and the identifier is the input. This zone alone has two offsets in a year, and 33 other zones share its current reading while carrying different rules. A record storing UTC-3 cannot tell them apart; a record storing
America/Halifaxkeeps working through every future rule change.