It is 1:45 pm in Europe/Sofia

Europe/Sofia is the IANA identifier for the time zone of Sofia in Bulgaria. It is running at UTC+3 right now, abbreviated EEST, and the local date is Friday, September 25, 2026. The zone is on its summer offset at the moment.

What time is it in Europe/Sofia right now

1:45 pm on Friday, September 25, 2026, as this page was served, which in 24 hour form is 13:45. The clock above ticks on from there in your own browser. The offset is a whole 3 hours ahead of UTC, so a UTC timestamp converts here by changing the hour and leaving the minutes exactly as they are.

41 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 Europe/Sofia throws away the rule that decides what they all do at the next transition.

The UTC offset of Europe/Sofia

An offset of UTC+3 names the meridian 45.0 degrees east. Sofia, Bulgaria actually sits at 23.32 degrees east, which is 21.7 degrees west of it, so the sun there runs about 87 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+2 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 Europe/Sofia

Europe/Sofia does observe daylight saving. The next change is on October 25, 2026: at 3:00 am local the clocks go back, and UTC+3 becomes UTC+2. 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.

How the offset of Europe/Sofia 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. The zone has passed through 2 distinct eras in that time and has used 2 different offsets: UTC+2, UTC+3. Its current behaviour has held since 1979. 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.

The earliest summer shift this sampling sees here is 1979, 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 Europe/Sofia

One country uses Europe/Sofia: Bulgaria, which keeps this as its only time zone and has a population of about 6,450,000.

Cities in the Europe/Sofia time zone

The 6 cities this site covers inside Europe/Sofia, 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.

The sun against the clock in Europe/Sofia

Worked out for Sofia, Bulgaria, the city this site covers inside the zone, at 42.70 degrees north, 23.32 degrees east. The sun rises at 7:17 am and sets at 7:19 pm, giving 12 hours 2 minutes of daylight. Solar noon, the moment the sun is highest, falls at 1:18 pm, which is 78 minutes after clock noon.

That gap is the whole argument about where zone lines belong, in one number. It is made of three things: Sofia, Bulgaria sitting 21.7 degrees west of the UTC+3 meridian, the equation of time, which today runs 8.3 minutes ahead of mean time, and the hour of daylight saving currently in force. Full sunrise and sunset times for Sofia.

Convert Europe/Sofia to another time zone

The converter is keyed on the abbreviations people type rather than on identifiers. Europe/Sofia is at UTC+3 right now, the same reading as EET, so these pages answer the same question for it today. They will diverge if the two zones ever adopt different daylight saving rules, which is exactly why the identifier is the thing worth storing.

Questions about Europe/Sofia

What time is it in Europe/Sofia right now?

1:45 pm 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 Europe/Sofia?

UTC+3 at this instant, and it alternates between UTC+2 in winter and UTC+3 in summer.

Does Europe/Sofia observe daylight saving time?

Yes. The next change is October 25, 2026, when the clocks go back.

What is the abbreviation for Europe/Sofia?

EEST at this instant. The letters change with the season, because the standard and summer offsets have separate names.

Which countries use Europe/Sofia?

Bulgaria.

Why store Europe/Sofia 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 41 other zones share its current reading while carrying different rules. A record storing UTC+3 cannot tell them apart; a record storing Europe/Sofia keeps working through every future rule change.

Other time zones in Europe

Where else to look