Zones at a glance
Offsets from UTC in mid-January and mid-July 2027, after the 2026 changes. Where a zone shows the same offset in both columns, its clocks do not change.
| Zone | Cities here | January | July |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pacific | Vancouver | UTC−7 | UTC−7 |
| Mountain (and Yukon) | Whitehorse | UTC−7 | UTC−7 |
| Mountain (and Yukon) | Edmonton, Calgary, Yellowknife | UTC−6 | UTC−6 |
| Central | Regina, Saskatoon | UTC−6 | UTC−6 |
| Central | Winnipeg | UTC−5 | UTC−5 |
| Eastern | Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal | UTC−5 | UTC−4 |
| Atlantic | Halifax, Fredericton, Charlottetown | UTC−4 | UTC−3 |
| Newfoundland | St. John’s | UTC−3:30 | UTC−2:30 |
What changed in 2026
Several provinces ended seasonal clock changes this year. Official summaries, including the National Research Council’s time zone page, say they are under review and will not be fully accurate after November 1, 2026. Treat the table above as the current picture, and check with your provincial or territorial government for local exceptions.
Moved clocks forward on March 8, 2026 for the last time and now stays on UTC−7 all year. A few eastern areas, such as the Regional District of East Kootenay and Golden, chose year-round UTC−6 to match Alberta, and some northeastern areas already used UTC−7 all year.
Stays on UTC−6 from November 1, 2026: clocks do not go back. Yellowknife follows Alberta.
Stays on UTC−5 all year, the same as Toronto in winter and one hour ahead of Regina all year.
UTC−6 all year, as before. It now matches Alberta all year, and is one hour behind Manitoba all year.
Still change their clocks on the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November. The part of Ontario west of 90° W was moving to UTC−5 all year on November 1, 2026 and is not shown as a separate city here. Parts of eastern Quebec use Atlantic time all year, and Nunavut has three zones; those are not shown either.
On UTC−7 all year since November 1, 2020.
Most of the province is on UTC−3:30 in winter and UTC−2:30 in summer. Labrador mostly follows Atlantic time and is not shown as a separate city.
Frequently asked questions
What is the time difference between Vancouver and Toronto?
Two hours in winter and three hours in summer. British Columbia stays on UTC−7 all year, while Toronto is on UTC−5 in winter and UTC−4 in summer. Before 2026 it was always three hours. The table above shows the exact offsets for January and July 2027.
Does Saskatchewan change its clocks?
No. Saskatchewan stays on UTC−6 all year. That matched Alberta in summer already, and since November 2026 it matches Alberta in winter too, because Alberta no longer changes its clocks either.
Why is Newfoundland a half hour off?
Newfoundland standard time is UTC−3:30, a half hour ahead of Atlantic time, and daylight time moves it to UTC−2:30. St. John’s is therefore one and a half hours ahead of Toronto.
What happens to times that fall in the daylight time change?
In spring, a time between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m. does not exist, so the page reads it as the equivalent time an hour later and warns you. In autumn, a time between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. happens twice; the page uses the first and shows the second.
Will this page be right if my device’s time zone data is out of date?
Yes. The rules are in the page itself instead of coming from your device, because several Canadian provinces changed their time rules in 2026 and some devices have not been updated. Only the names of months and weekdays come from your browser.
Does it cover other countries?
No. It covers the main Canadian zones, and it works for dates from 2012 to 2100 assuming current rules stay in place. A future law change would need an update.
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How we check it
Tests compare the page’s own time rules with the JavaScript Intl implementation, which carries the IANA time zone database, for hourly samples from 2012 to 2040 and for the minutes around every clock change, across all eight rule sets used here. They also check hand-worked cases: the March 8, 2026 and November 1, 2026 changes, the second Sunday of March and first Sunday of November dates, Saskatchewan and Yukon staying fixed, and the skipped and repeated hours.
The comparison with Intl passes in the Node build we test with, whose data already includes the 2026 changes. A browser with older data could disagree with us; this page does not use it for offsets, so you get the same answer on any device.
Limits: the rules were written from the IANA database and the provincial announcements it cites, not from each province’s statute, and the National Research Council says its own page is under review. Local exceptions (the part of Ontario west of 90° W, East Kootenay, parts of Quebec and Nunavut, Labrador) are not modelled. The 2007 dates apply from 2012 onward only.