Egypt Standard Time

Time zones of Africa:
Light Blue Cape Verde Time[a] (UTC−1)
Blue Greenwich Mean Time (UTC)
Red
(UTC+1)
Ochre
(UTC+2)
Green East Africa Time (UTC+3)
Turquoise
(UTC+4)
a The islands of Cape Verde and Canary Islands are to the west of the African mainland.
b Mauritius and the Seychelles are to the east and north-east of Madagascar respectively.
Time in the Middle East
    UTC+02:00

UTC+03:00 		Eastern European Time /
Israel Standard Time /
Eastern European Summer Time /
Israel Summer Time
    UTC+03:00 Arabia Standard Time /
Turkey Time
    UTC+03:30 Iran Standard Time
    UTC+04:00 Gulf Standard Time
▉▉▉ Standard time observed all year
▉ Daylight saving time observed

Clock in Cairo Metro, with Eastern Arabic numerals.

Egypt Standard Time (EGY) (Arabic: توقيت مصر القياسي Tawqīt Miṣr al-qiyāsiyy) is UTC+02:00, which is equivalent to Eastern European Time, Central Africa Time, South African Standard Time and Central European Summer Time, and is co-linear with neighbouring Libya and Sudan. Egypt has used Eastern European Summer Time (UTC+03:00), during the summer periods from 1957 to 2010, 2014, 2015, and since 2023.

History

See also: Daylight saving time in Egypt

On 21 April 2011, the interim government abolished summer time. Standard time was therefore observed all year long.

On 7 May 2014, the Egyptian interim government decided to use summer time starting from 15 May 2014, the third Friday of May, with an exception for the holy month of Ramadan. This occurred just before the Egyptian presidential elections were expected to start.[1]

On 20 April 2015, the Egyptian government decided against observing summer time following a poll that had been held in April 2015 regarding applying DST or not. The government decided to make the necessary amendment to the laws and asked the ministers to work on a study to determine the probability of applying daylight saving time in coming years or not.[2] The ministry of electricity assured that the achieved electricity saving from applying summer time is not of any tangible effect.[3]

On 29 April 2016, the government under Prime Minister Sherif Ismail decided to use summer time again (UTC+03:00) by 7 July. It was to begin after Ramadan and last until the end of October. However, it was cancelled on 4 July following a vote by the Egyptian Parliament on 28 June to abolish DST, and to comply with the April 2015 presidential decree to refrain from introducing DST.

On 1 March 2023, the Egyptian Cabinet passed law 24 of 2023 to reinstate DST, moving to UTC+03:00 starting from the last Friday of April (28 April) at 00:01 until the last Thursday of October (26 October) at 23:59.[4]

Time zone changes

Period in use Time offset from GMT Name of time zone
Prior to 1900 UTC+02:05:09 Cairo mean time
1900–1939 UTC+02:00 Eastern European Time
15 July 1940 – 1 November 1945 UTC+02:00
UTC+03:00 		Eastern European Time
Eastern European Summer Time
1946–1957 UTC+02:00 Eastern European Time
10 May 1957 – 19 April 2011 UTC+02:00
UTC+03:00 		Eastern European Time
Eastern European Summer Time
20 April 2011 – 15 May 2014 UTC+02:00 Eastern European Time
16 May 2014 – 19 April 2015 UTC+02:00
UTC+03:00 		Eastern European Time
Eastern European Summer Time
20 April 2015 – 27 April 2023 UTC+02:00 Eastern European Time
28 April 2023 – present UTC+02:00
UTC+03:00 		Eastern European Time
Eastern European Summer Time

IANA time zone database

The IANA time zone database contains one zone for Egypt in the file zone.tab.

coordinates* TZ* Standard time Summer time
+3003+03115 Africa/Cairo UTC+02:00 UTC+03:00

See also

References

  1. ^ "Egypt's government to re-apply daylight saving time".
  2. ^ "No daylight saving this summer: Egypt's prime minister".
  3. ^ "Council of Ministers Postpones Using Summer Time This Year". Archived from the original on 9 June 2016. Retrieved 21 April 2015. (in Arabic)
  4. ^ "Egypt to reapply daylight-saving time annually to rationalise use of energy - Society - Egypt". Ahram Online. Retrieved 28 April 2023.