Seattle, United States · UTC-7
Convert time from Seattle
Seattle runs on America/Los_Angeles: UTC-8 in winter (Pacific Standard Time) and UTC-7 in summer (Pacific Daylight Time). DST begins the second Sunday in March and ends the first Sunday in November. Seattle shares this clock with Los Angeles, Portland, and the entire Pacific Coast of the continental United States.
At 47 degrees north latitude, Seattle has more dramatic seasonal daylight variation than almost any major American city. In June, sunrise comes before 5:15am and sunset holds past 9pm. In December, the sun rises after 8am and sets before 4:20pm. The long, dim winter days and the extended summer light define the city’s character as much as the rain does.
West Coast time and the tech industry
Seattle’s technology sector operates on Pacific Time but thinks in global hours. Amazon, Microsoft, and Boeing all run operations spanning multiple continents. The Pacific timezone means that a Seattle engineer’s morning standup at 9am arrives when London is already at 5pm and Tokyo is in the early hours of the next day. This creates a particular form of asynchronous work culture where decisions often wait until the following day for international partners.
The city’s maritime history runs deep. Seattle was the primary departure point for the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897, and the port has remained one of the busiest on the West Coast. Ships operating between Seattle and East Asian ports cross the International Date Line, arriving in Tokyo or Shanghai on a different calendar day than they departed, a geographic fact that makes the port’s logistics schedules genuinely complex.
World Cup 2026 and Lumen Field
Seattle will host FIFA World Cup 2026 matches at Lumen Field, home of the Seahawks and Sounders. The venue has a reputation for noise that visiting teams find disorienting. Pacific Time means that matches kicking off at 7pm local are at 10pm Eastern and 3am in London, scheduling that affects which international audiences can watch live.
For visitors from Europe, Seattle’s Pacific timezone requires the full 8-hour mental shift from winter UTC. For visitors from Japan, the city is UTC+9 versus UTC-8, a 17-hour difference that makes direct comparison easier: when it is noon in Seattle, Tokyo is 5am the following morning.
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Questions about time in Seattle
- What timezone is Seattle in?
- Seattle is in Pacific Time (PT), using the IANA timezone
America/Los_Angeles. The standard UTC offset is UTC-8 (PST) in winter and UTC-7 (PDT) during daylight saving time. - Does Seattle observe daylight saving time?
- Yes. Seattle observes daylight saving time, shifting from UTC-8 (standard time) to UTC-7 in summer.
- What is the current UTC offset for Seattle?
- Seattle is currently at UTC-7. It is currently observing daylight saving time.
- What is the time difference between Seattle and New York?
- Seattle is currently 3 hours behind New York.
- What is the time difference between Seattle and London?
- Seattle is currently 8 hours behind London.
- What is the time difference between Seattle and Tokyo?
- Seattle is currently 16 hours behind Tokyo. Tokyo does not observe daylight saving time, so this gap changes by 1 hour when Seattle transitions to/from DST.
- What is the IANA timezone name for Seattle?
- The IANA timezone database identifier for Seattle is
America/Los_Angeles. Use this string in programming languages and APIs: JavaScript (`new Intl.DateTimeFormat('en-US', { timeZone: 'America/Los_Angeles' })`), Python (`pytz.timezone('America/Los_Angeles')`), or any IANA-compatible library.