GMT Time Now

GMT right now

GMT is Greenwich Mean Time, the time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, which sits on the prime meridian. It equals UTC+0 and is the UK’s clock from the last Sunday of October to the last Sunday of March.

In the summer the UK moves to British Summer Time (BST, UTC+1), so London is only on GMT for about five months a year. Many people write “GMT” all year to mean “London time”, but strictly the abbreviation is winter-only.

When this page was last built (Friday, November 6, 2026, 12:00 UTC) it was 12:00 PM on Friday in Greenwich Mean Time. The offset for GMT is UTC+0. The live clock above takes over as soon as the page loads and shows the exact current time.

Where GMT is used

GMT is used year-round in West Africa and Iceland, and in winter in the UK, Ireland and Portugal.

• London
• Dublin
• Lisbon
• Reykjavík
• Edinburgh
• Manchester
• Accra
• Dakar
• Birmingham
• Cardiff
• Glasgow
• Belfast

Ireland calls its winter time Greenwich Mean Time too, and its summer time Irish Standard Time. Portugal uses Western European Time (WET), which is the same offset as GMT. Ghana, Senegal and Iceland keep UTC+0 all year.

When to use GMT

GMT remains a convenient shorthand for the UK in winter. A flight, a university exam or a broadcast schedule for “9 AM GMT” in January is 9 AM in London. In July the same sentence should read “9 AM BST”, but many people still write GMT; the safest reading of “9 AM GMT” in summer is UTC, one hour earlier than a London wall clock.

Relative to the rest of the world, GMT is a handy anchor. India is 5 hours 30 minutes ahead of GMT. New York is 5 hours behind. Tokyo is 9 hours ahead, Sydney 11 hours ahead in the Australian summer. Those gaps change through the year as the UK and others move their clocks, while the GMT line itself never does.

Markets such as the London Stock Exchange open at 8:00 AM London time and close at 4:30 PM. In winter that is 08:00–16:30 GMT. When the UK is on BST the same session is 07:00–15:30 UTC, which matters for anyone reading data feeds in UTC.

GMT, UTC and BST

GMT and UTC are the same clock to the second for everyday purposes, but they are not the same thing. GMT is a time zone defined by the Greenwich meridian; UTC is an atomic-time standard that the world uses as its base. Software treats Etc/GMT and Etc/UTC as equivalent offsets.

GMT is also the name of a zone that stays put, whereas “UK time” changes. If you write “GMT” in July, you are describing a time that no UK clock shows. Use “UK time” or “London time” if you mean the wall clock, and “GMT” or “UTC” if you mean a fixed reference.

There is one more trap: GMT is sometimes used loosely to mean any offset, as in “GMT+5:30” for India. That form is accepted by phones and browsers, but strictly it should read UTC+5:30.