| CITY | LOCAL TIME | Difference | Coming up |
|---|---|---|---|
| London United Kingdom | 01:00Thu | +7h | Becomes +6h on 25 Oct |
| Berlin Germany | 02:00Thu | +8h | Becomes +7h on 25 Oct |
| Dubai UAE | 04:00Thu | +10h | |
| Tokyo Japan | 09:00Thu | +15h | |
| Sydney Australia | 10:00Thu | +16h | Becomes +17h on 4 Oct |
| New York United States | 20:00 | +2h | Becomes +1h on 1 Nov |
| Los Angeles United States | 17:00 | −1h | Becomes −2h on 1 Nov |
San José, Costa Rica runs on UTC−6. This time zone stays fixed year-round at UTC−6 — daylight saving time is not observed. The time difference between San José and New York is 2 hours. Standard 9-to-6 working hours overlap for about 7 hours a day with New York. A good time to connect: 09:00–16:00 in San José lines up with 11:00–18:00 in New York. The time difference between San José and London is 7 hours. Standard 9-to-6 working hours overlap for about 2 hours a day with London. A good time to connect: 09:00–11:00 in San José lines up with 16:00–18:00 in London. The time difference between San José and Tokyo is 15 hours. Standard working hours don't overlap at all with Tokyo, so meetings need an early or late slot on one side. This timezone is also shared with cities such as Mexico City, Calgary, Edmonton. Keeping these offsets in mind makes it easier to schedule calls or travel to and from San José.
San José (Costa Rica) is home to roughly 1.4M people. Today brings about 12.0 hours of daylight: sunrise at 05:24, sunset at 17:27. This time zone stays fixed year-round at UTC−6 — daylight saving time is not observed. It sits in the Northern Hemisphere, about 10° north of the equator. Traffic drives on the right.
Flag
Costa Rica
Capital
San José 👑
Continent
North America
Time Zone
CST · America/Costa_Rica
Coordinates
9.93°N, 84.08°W
Currency
CRC (₡)
Calling Code
+506
Driving Side
Right
Hemisphere
Northern
Language
Spanish
Measurement System
Metric
Did You Know?
Costa Rica abolished its military in 1948 and wrote the ban into its constitution the following year. The budget was redirected into education and health, and the country has held uninterrupted democratic elections since.
The clock: San José keeps UTC−6 with no daylight saving. Costa Rica holds around 5% of the world's known biodiversity on about 0.03% of the world's land surface.
San José lies at 84.1°W. Its time zone, UTC−6, is built around the 90°W meridian. The 5.9° gap between them means the clock runs roughly 24 minutes behind the sun: solar noon arrives at about 11:36 rather than 12:00. The zone holds UTC−6 all year — there is no daylight saving here.
The longest day of 2026 is 22 June, with 12h 42m of daylight. The shortest is 22 December, with 11h 33m. The swing between them is 1h 10m. Within a few degrees of the equator the length of the day barely moves all year.
The earliest sunrise and the latest sunset do not land on the longest day. In San José the sun comes up earliest on 30 May at 05:14, while the latest sunset waits until 14 July at 18:02. The equation of time is what separates them: the Earth's elliptical orbit and axial tilt move solar noon back and forth by several minutes over the year.
The sky stays usably light for a while after the sun goes down. In San José that civil twilight runs about 21 minutes at the equinox.
Every figure in this section is computed from the city's own latitude, longitude and IANA time zone using NOAA solar algorithms (Spencer, 1971), accurate to about ±2 arcminutes below 65° latitude.
The official timezone for San José, Costa Rica is America/Costa_Rica with a current UTC offset of UTC−6.
San José has an estimated population of 1.4M and is located at coordinates 9.93°N, 84.08°W. It is the capital city of Costa Rica.
San José gets 12h 42m of daylight on its longest day and 11h 33m on its shortest, averaging 12h 8m a day across the year.
Solar noon in San José falls at about 11:36 on UTC−6 standard time, because the city sits 5.9° from the meridian its zone is built on.
A Country With No Army: Costa Rica abolished its military in 1948 and wrote the ban into its constitution the following year.