Dhaka
UTC+6Bangladesh · BST
Thu, 13 Aug 2026
Timezone Guide
Dhaka, Bangladesh runs on UTC+6. This time zone stays fixed year-round at UTC+6 — daylight saving time is not observed. There is a 10-hour difference between Dhaka and New York. Standard working hours don't overlap at all with New York, so meetings need an early or late slot on one side. There is a 5-hour difference between Dhaka and London. Standard 9-to-6 working hours overlap for about 4 hours a day with London. A good time to connect: 14:00–18:00 in Dhaka lines up with 09:00–13:00 in London. There is a 3-hour difference between Dhaka and Tokyo. Standard 9-to-6 working hours overlap for about 6 hours a day with Tokyo. A good time to connect: 09:00–15:00 in Dhaka lines up with 12:00–18:00 in Tokyo. Keeping these offsets in mind makes it easier to schedule calls or travel to and from Dhaka.
Practical Info
Dhaka (Bangladesh) is home to roughly 22.5M people. Today brings about 13.4 hours of daylight: sunrise at 05:18, sunset at 18:42. This time zone stays fixed year-round at UTC+6 — daylight saving time is not observed. It sits in the Northern Hemisphere, about 24° north of the equator. Traffic drives on the left.
Flag
Bangladesh
Capital
Dhaka 👑
Continent
Asia
Time Zone
BST · Asia/Dhaka
Coordinates
23.72°N, 90.41°E
Currency
BDT (৳)
Calling Code
+880
Driving Side
Left
Hemisphere
Northern
Language
Bengali
Measurement System
Metric
Did You Know?
Bangladesh Put Its Clocks Forward for the Summer and Took Them Back on New Year's Eve
Bangladesh Standard Time is UTC+6, calculated from the 90th meridian — a line that runs through the Manikganj district, just west of Dhaka. That makes Dhaka one of the most accurately positioned capitals in the world. Its clock sits within a couple of minutes of its own solar noon.
For six and a half months in 2009, it didn't.
On 19 June 2009, for the first time in the country's history, Bangladesh introduced daylight saving time. Clocks went forward one hour at 11pm, moving the country to UTC+7. It was done by executive decision, without legislation, to address a chronic electricity shortage — peak demand exceeded supply by roughly 1,200 megawatts, and blackouts were routine.
It did not go well, and the reasons are worth listing, because they are all about coordination rather than daylight.
Bangladesh's UTC+6 already sat awkwardly between India on UTC+5:30 and Myanmar on UTC+6:30. Moving to UTC+7 made cross-border scheduling harder, not easier. Public clocks, schools and markets were never systematically synchronised. Prayer times are fixed by the sun and did not move with the clock. Students and teachers found themselves setting off before sunrise. And whatever electricity the change saved was offset by hot weather in the days that followed.
The clock: the ending belongs in a museum of administration.
Daylight saving was originally scheduled to end on 30 September 2009. After sustained public complaint, the government pushed the end date back — not forward, back — to 31 December.
Which means Bangladesh spent October, November and December on summer time, in winter, having extended a measure introduced to save summer electricity into the coldest, darkest quarter of the year. The clocks finally went back at 23:59 on New Year's Eve.
A repeat was planned for 31 March 2010. On 22 March, nine days before it was due to start, the cabinet cancelled it, citing public interest and concern for schoolchildren who would have had to wake before dawn to reach school by seven.
Bangladesh has not moved its clocks since.
Sources
- timeanddate.com, *Bangladesh Starts Daylight Saving Time on June 19, 2009*
- timeanddate.com, *Bangladesh's Daylight Saving Time Ends December 31* (bitiş tarihinin 30 Eylül'den 31 Aralık'a ertelenmesi)
- timeanddate.com, *No Daylight Saving Time in Bangladesh in 2010* (22 Mart 2010 iptali; okul çocukları gerekçesi; 1.200 MW açık)
- Wikipedia, *Bangladesh Standard Time* (tasarrufun sıcak havayla dengelenmesi)
- Grokipedia (yürütme kararıyla uygulanması; Hindistan ve Myanmar arasındaki koordinasyon sorunu)
Annual Daylight
Working Hours
6h overlap