China to UTC
Coordinated Universal Time is 8 hours behind China Standard Time, all year round.
China to UTC conversion table
Every hour of the day, China Standard Time to Coordinated Universal Time. The gap never changes, so this table holds on every date.
| China | UTC |
|---|---|
| 12:00 AM | 4:00 PM −1 day |
| 1:00 AM | 5:00 PM −1 day |
| 2:00 AM | 6:00 PM −1 day |
| 3:00 AM | 7:00 PM −1 day |
| 4:00 AM | 8:00 PM −1 day |
| 5:00 AM | 9:00 PM −1 day |
| 6:00 AM | 10:00 PM −1 day |
| 7:00 AM | 11:00 PM −1 day |
| 8:00 AM | 12:00 AM |
| 9:00 AM | 1:00 AM |
| 10:00 AM | 2:00 AM |
| 11:00 AM | 3:00 AM |
| China | UTC |
|---|---|
| 12:00 PM | 4:00 AM |
| 1:00 PM | 5:00 AM |
| 2:00 PM | 6:00 AM |
| 3:00 PM | 7:00 AM |
| 4:00 PM | 8:00 AM |
| 5:00 PM | 9:00 AM |
| 6:00 PM | 10:00 AM |
| 7:00 PM | 11:00 AM |
| 8:00 PM | 12:00 PM |
| 9:00 PM | 1:00 PM |
| 10:00 PM | 2:00 PM |
| 11:00 PM | 3:00 PM |
Shared working hours
They do not overlap at all. A 09:00–17:00 working day in China Standard Time ends no time at all before the Coordinated Universal Time one begins, so any live call sits outside somebody's working hours.
The shortest reach is the edges: early morning in China against late evening in UTC, or the other way round.
When the difference changes
It doesn't. Coordinated Universal Time is 8 hours behind China Standard Time on every date of the year. China Standard Time runs at UTC+08:00; Coordinated Universal Time runs at UTC+00:00.
About China Standard Time
China runs a single clock, UTC+8, across roughly 60 degrees of longitude — the widest single-zone span of any country. In the far west that puts sunrise after 10:00 on the clock in midwinter. There is no daylight saving; the practice was dropped in 1991.
Cities on this clock: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore.
Watch out: CST is also North American Central Standard Time (UTC−6). This page is the Chinese one — the two are fourteen hours apart.
About Coordinated Universal Time
UTC never shifts. It is the reference every other zone is defined against, which is why logs, flight schedules and protocol timestamps use it. GMT is the same clock for every civil purpose, so a query for one is answered by the other.
Cities on this clock: Reykjavik, Accra, Abidjan, Dakar.
Watch out: GMT is also used loosely to mean "UK time", and those are not the same thing for seven months of the year — the United Kingdom moves to BST (UTC+1) while UTC stays put.
How the difference is worked out
Neither China Standard Time nor Coordinated Universal Time moves its clock relative to the other, so coordinated universal time is 8 hours behind china standard time is a rule rather than a fact about one particular year. The hour-by-hour table above holds on every date.
With both zones on their own standard time — daylight saving not in force anywhere — Coordinated Universal Time is 8 hours behind China Standard Time. That figure never changes; everything else on this page follows from it plus whichever clocks have moved.
Every figure here comes from the IANA time zone database via your browser's own Intl engine, using the zone ids Asia/Shanghai and UTC. Nothing is looked up on a server and nothing about your visit is recorded.
Is UTC ahead of or behind China?
Coordinated Universal Time is 8 hours behind China Standard Time, all year round. China Standard Time runs at UTC+08:00; Coordinated Universal Time runs at UTC+00:00. Because neither zone changes its clock, the gap never moves.
What time is 9 AM China in UTC?
9:00 AM China is 1:00 AM UTC.
When can China Standard Time and Coordinated Universal Time meet?
They do not overlap. A 09:00–17:00 working day in China Standard Time ends no time at all before the Coordinated Universal Time one begins, so a call has to sit outside someone's working hours — early morning in China Standard Time or late evening in Coordinated Universal Time is usually the shortest reach.
What does China stand for?
China is China Standard Time, also written CST, China time, Beijing time. CST is also North American Central Standard Time (UTC−6). This page is the Chinese one — the two are fourteen hours apart.