Time in Seoul Now — Current Local Time. Seoul is on UTC+09:00 right now — Seoul stays on UTC+09:00 all year — it does not observe daylight saving, so its offset from UTC never changes. The current local time, date and daylight saving status are shown live by the world clock, which is worked out from the IANA time zone database (Asia/Seoul), not from a printed table.
Try the tool: World Clock — see the current time in Seoul and 99 other cities, side by side, with each city's UTC offset.
What time is it in Seoul now?
The world clock shows the current time in Seoul live — the time, the date and the day of the week — updated every second from your device's clock and the IANA time zone database. It is the time in the Asia/Seoul zone, which covers Seoul and the surrounding region. The clock does not use a fixed offset: it asks the database what the offset is on today's date, so it is right whether daylight saving is in effect or not. That matters more than it sounds, because Seoul's offset never changes, which is one reason the time in Seoul is easy to remember.
If you need the time in Seoul for a meeting or a flight, use the live clock rather than a remembered offset. The remembered offset is right most of the year and wrong for a few weeks — the weeks when Seoul is on the same time it is always on, while the place you are calling from has just changed its clocks. The time zone converter handles the date as well as the cities, so it is right on the awkward dates too.
Seoul's UTC offset
Seoul stays on UTC+09:00 all year — it does not observe daylight saving, so its offset from UTC never changes.
| Period | Offset | In effect |
|---|---|---|
| All year | UTC+09:00 | The offset never changes |
| Right now (11 November 2026) | UTC+09:00 | The offset never changes |
The offset is the whole story for conversions. To get the time in Seoul from UTC, add the offset: when it is 12:00 UTC, it is 21:00 in Seoul in January and 21:00 in July. To go the other way, subtract it. The UTC converter does the arithmetic for any hour, and the UTC to Seoul page has the full 24-hour conversion table for this city.
Daylight saving in Seoul
Seoul does not observe daylight saving time, and its offset never changes. South Korea last observed daylight saving in 1988, for the Seoul Olympics. It has not been used since. That makes Seoul one of the easiest cities in the world to schedule with: the time difference between Seoul and anywhere else only changes when the other place changes its clocks. The Seoul DST 2026 page explains the history, and the daylight saving checker confirms the status for any zone.
Seoul working hours in other cities
The table below converts Seoul's working day — 09:00 to 17:00 local time — into the time in four reference points: UTC, New York, London and Tokyo. It is the table to use when you are working out whether someone in Seoul is at their desk.
January (northern winter) — when it is the time in the first column in Seoul, it is the time shown in each other city.
| Time in Seoul | UTC | New York | London | Tokyo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 | 00:00 | 19:00 | 00:00 | 09:00 |
| 12:00 | 03:00 | 22:00 | 03:00 | 12:00 |
| 15:00 | 06:00 | 01:00 | 06:00 | 15:00 |
| 17:00 | 08:00 | 03:00 | 08:00 | 17:00 |
July (northern summer) — when it is the time in the first column in Seoul, it is the time shown in each other city.
| Time in Seoul | UTC | New York | London | Tokyo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 | 00:00 | 20:00 | 01:00 | 09:00 |
| 12:00 | 03:00 | 23:00 | 04:00 | 12:00 |
| 15:00 | 06:00 | 02:00 | 07:00 | 15:00 |
| 17:00 | 08:00 | 04:00 | 09:00 | 17:00 |
Read the table from left to right: find the time in Seoul, then read across to see what time it is in each other city. If the January and July tables differ, the difference is daylight saving — one or more of the cities has changed its clocks between the two dates. The meeting planner does the same conversion for any two cities and any date, and the meeting time finder finds the hours when everyone is available.
Best time to call Seoul
The best windows to call Seoul — the hours when Seoul is in its working day and New York, London and Tokyo are most likely to be awake — are 07:00–22:00 Seoul time (January, when the offsets are as shown in the table above). These are the hours when at least two of the three hubs are between 07:00 and 22:00 local time, so the call is inside the working day in Seoul and at a reasonable hour for the other side. Outside these windows, the call is either before the working day in Seoul or in the middle of the night somewhere else.
As a rule of thumb, the kindest time to call Seoul from the United States is late morning in New York, which is the afternoon or evening in Seoul for most of the world east of the Atlantic — and the kindest time from Europe is mid-morning in London, which is late morning or afternoon in Seoul for most of Asia. The worst time to call is the hour that is 03:00 somewhere: check the tables above before you dial.
About Seoul and its time zone
Seoul is on Korea Standard Time, UTC+09:00, all year — the same time as Tokyo. South Korea last observed daylight saving in 1988, for the Seoul Olympics, and has not used it since.
Seoul is in the Asia region, and its IANA time zone is Asia/Seoul. That name is the identifier computers use: when your phone, your calendar or this website works out the time in Seoul, it looks up Asia/Seoul in the IANA Time Zone Database and applies the rules for that zone on the date you asked about. The rules include the standard offset, the daylight saving dates and the whole history of changes — which is why the answer is right even for dates in the past, when the rules were different.
The practical consequence is that the time in Seoul is not a fixed number. It is a single number, all year, which is the simplest case in time-zone work. The time in Seoul is UTC+09:00 on every day of the year, and the only thing that changes is the time in the place you are calling from. The time zone list shows every zone in the database with its current offset, and the guides explain how the system works.
Seoul compared with the world's major cities
When it is 12:00 in Seoul, it is:
| City | January | July |
|---|---|---|
| New York | 22:00 | 23:00 |
| London | 03:00 | 04:00 |
| Paris | 04:00 | 05:00 |
| Dubai | 07:00 | 07:00 |
| Mumbai | 08:30 | 08:30 |
| Singapore | 11:00 | 11:00 |
| Tokyo | 12:00 | 12:00 |
| Sydney | 14:00 | 13:00 |
The January and July columns differ wherever one of the cities observes daylight saving and the other does not, or where they change their clocks on different dates. For the full comparison with the cities people ask about most, see New York to Seoul time, Seoul to New York time, London to Seoul time.
How to convert Seoul time
Three worked examples, all for January, when Seoul is on UTC+09:00: 09:00 in Seoul is 00:00 UTC, 00:00 in London and 19:00 in New York. 12:00 in Seoul is 03:00 UTC and 12:00 in Tokyo. 17:00 in Seoul — the end of the working day — is 08:00 UTC and 03:00 in New York. In July, when Seoul is on UTC+09:00, add or subtract the difference between the two offsets — there is none, because the offset does not change — from each of those answers.
Frequently asked questions
What time is it in Seoul right now?
The world clock shows the current time in Seoul live, with the date and the day of the week. It is worked out from the IANA time zone database (Asia/Seoul), so it is right whether daylight saving is in effect or not.
What is Seoul's UTC offset?
Seoul is on UTC+09:00 in standard time, all year. Right now (11 November 2026) it is on UTC+09:00.
Does Seoul observe daylight saving time?
No. Seoul does not observe daylight saving, so its offset of UTC+09:00 never changes. See the Seoul DST 2026 page for the full explanation.
What is the time difference between Seoul and London?
In January, Seoul is 9 hours ahead London; in July it is 8 hours ahead London. The difference changes with daylight saving.
What is the time difference between Seoul and New York?
In January, Seoul is 14 hours ahead New York; in July it is 13 hours ahead New York. See New York to Seoul time for the full comparison.
What time zone is Seoul in?
Seoul is in the IANA time zone Asia/Seoul, in South Korea. The zone's standard offset is UTC+09:00, and it does not observe daylight saving.
Sources
- IANA Time Zone Database, via Node.js Intl (
Intl.DateTimeFormatwithtimeZone) — offsets, daylight saving dates and local times in this article were worked out from the IANA database, not typed from memory. - TimeFlow's own time-zone data (
data/cities.ts,data/dst.ts), computed from the IANA database. - TimeFlow's world clock and time zone converter — the live tools behind the numbers on this page.
- Time-zone and daylight saving rules are set by governments and can change. For flights, deadlines and meetings that cannot move, confirm the time with an official source.