Turkey has one time zone for the whole country: UTC+3, all year round.
Turkey runs on a single time zone, UTC+3, from Edirne on the Greek border to Van near Iran. It has not observed daylight saving time since 7 September 2016, so the clock here never springs forward or falls back.
That last point catches people out. When the gap between Turkey and your country changes twice a year, it is because your country changed, not Turkey. The clock below reads your location from your connection and works out the current difference for you.
| City | Local time | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Istanbul, Ankara, Antalya | --:--:-- | · |
| Jakarta | --:--:-- | · |
| Delhi, Mumbai | --:--:-- | · |
| Lagos, Abuja | --:--:-- | · |
| Dubai | --:--:-- | · |
| London | --:--:-- | · |
| New York | --:--:-- | · |
| Los Angeles | --:--:-- | · |
Until 2016 Turkey switched between UTC+2 in winter and UTC+3 in summer, like the rest of Europe. In September that year the government cancelled the autumn change and kept the country on summer time permanently. The stated reason was to make better use of daylight in the evening.
The practical consequence is that Turkey's offset from UTC is now fixed. Any table that still shows Turkey at UTC+2 for part of the year is out of date, and any calculation that assumes Turkey follows European DST will be an hour wrong for roughly seven months a year.
Turkey is wide enough that a single time zone stretches the day noticeably. The sun rises over Van, in the east, close to an hour before it rises over Istanbul — by the same clock reading. In midwinter that means Istanbul does not get light until well after eight in the morning.
Each of the city pages on this site shows today's sunrise, sunset and day length for that city, calculated from its own latitude and longitude. The clock is identical everywhere in Turkey; the daylight is not.
Offices in Turkey generally run from 09:00 to 18:00, Monday to Friday, with the weekend on Saturday and Sunday. Banks typically close earlier, around 17:00. Shops and bazaars in tourist areas stay open far later, often until 21:00 or later in summer.
If you are calling from western Europe the working days overlap almost completely. From Indonesia, Malaysia or the Philippines the Turkish working day starts in your early afternoon. From the Americas the overlap is narrow and falls in your morning.
Istanbul is the obvious first stop, and it is genuinely split between two continents. Hagia Sophia is close to 1,500 years old, the Blue Mosque faces it across Sultanahmet Square, Topkapi Palace holds the Ottoman treasury, and the Grand Bazaar has been trading since the fifteenth century. A municipal ferry across the Bosphorus costs the price of a bus ticket and is the best view in the city.
Cappadocia, in central Anatolia, is where the hot-air balloons rise at dawn over the rock valleys around Göreme, and where underground cities such as Derinkuyu run several storeys into the tuff. Pamukkale, further west, is a hillside of white travertine terraces filled with warm water, with the ruins of Roman Hierapolis on the ridge above.
The southern coast — Antalya, Fethiye, Kaş, Bodrum — faces the Mediterranean and carries most of the country's beach tourism. For older history, Ephesus preserves the Library of Celsus, and Göbekli Tepe near Şanlıurfa is the oldest known temple complex anywhere on Earth at roughly 11,600 years, which makes it older than agriculture, pottery and writing.
Food is a reason to go on its own. Kebap covers a whole family of dishes rather than one; pide and lahmacun are the flatbreads; menemen is the standard breakfast of eggs cooked with tomato and pepper. Baklava and künefe are the desserts to look for, and Turkish tea arrives in small tulip-shaped glasses that shopkeepers hand out free.
Turkey is on UTC+3 all year. The clock at the top of this page shows the current Turkish time live and compares it with the time where you are.
One. The whole country uses UTC+3, even though it stretches about 1,600 kilometres from west to east.
No. Turkey abolished seasonal clock changes on 7 September 2016 and has stayed on UTC+3 permanently since then.
Because your own country changes, not Turkey. Europe, North America and many other regions move their clocks in spring and autumn while Turkey stays fixed at UTC+3.
Yes. Every city in Turkey keeps the same clock time. What differs is daylight: sunrise and sunset happen noticeably earlier in eastern cities such as Van and Trabzon.
UTC+3, which is the same as GMT+3. Turkish sources sometimes call it TRT, for Turkey Time.