Avarua, Cook Islands · UTC-10
Convert time from Avarua
Avarua is in the Pacific/Rarotonga timezone (CKT/UTC-10). The Cook Islands keep permanent UTC-10 with no daylight saving, placing the capital among the world’s most westward offsets.
Avarua is the capital of the Cook Islands, sitting on the north coast of Rarotonga, the main island of this self-governing nation in free association with New Zealand. It is a small tropical town: the island’s port, its administrative center, its main market, all within easy walking distance of each other.
The clock is UTC-10, permanent. The IANA identifier is Pacific/Rarotonga. No daylight saving.
The Cook Islands chose to remain at UTC-10 rather than adopt the UTC+14 offset that would place them on the other side of the International Date Line. Samoa made the cross-date-line jump in 2011 to align with New Zealand. The Cook Islands, also in free association with New Zealand, decided not to follow.
This means Avarua and Alofi in Niue, its neighbor, are both at UTC-10, among the most western offsets of any inhabited Pacific place. When it is noon in Auckland, it is 2am in Avarua. The two capitals are theoretically closely connected administratively but are almost 12 hours apart on the clock.
Tourism across a 12-hour gap
Rarotonga has a small but growing tourism economy. The island’s visitor arrivals are primarily from New Zealand and Australia. Coordinating flights, accommodations, and communications across a 12-hour timezone gap requires the kind of mental arithmetic that Pacific rim travelers become accustomed to.
9am in Avarua is 7pm in London the previous evening during European winter.
Sources
Read more about time in Cook Islands →Same time as Avarua
Compare Avarua with
Questions about time in Avarua
- What timezone is Avarua in?
- Avarua uses the IANA timezone
Pacific/Rarotonga. The UTC offset is always UTC-10 — this timezone does not observe daylight saving time. - Does Avarua observe daylight saving time?
- No. Avarua does not observe daylight saving time. The UTC offset remains UTC-10 all year round.
- What is the current UTC offset for Avarua?
- Avarua is currently at UTC-10.
- What is the time difference between Avarua and New York?
- Avarua is currently 6 hours behind New York.
- What is the time difference between Avarua and London?
- Avarua is currently 11 hours behind London.
- What is the time difference between Avarua and Los Angeles?
- Avarua is currently 3 hours behind Los Angeles.
- What is the time difference between Avarua and Tokyo?
- Avarua is currently 19 hours behind Tokyo.
- What is the IANA timezone name for Avarua?
- The IANA timezone database identifier for Avarua is
Pacific/Rarotonga. Use this string in programming languages and APIs: JavaScript (`new Intl.DateTimeFormat('en-US', { timeZone: 'Pacific/Rarotonga' })`), Python (`pytz.timezone('Pacific/Rarotonga')`), or any IANA-compatible library.