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Time in Vancouver

Time in Vancouver

Clock Tower in Downtown Vancouver. Photo by LtStowned.

Time Zone

Vancouver is located within the Pacific Standard Time Zone (PST).

PST is 8 hours behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), except for a few weeks during the year when this is 7 due to different date changes for Daylight Saving Time.

Vancouver uses Daylight Saving Time during the summer and just in the past few years this period has been extended. Clocks now go forward one hour on the second Sunday in March and back one hour on the first Sunday in November.

Daylight Hours in Vancouver

Being so far west within the PST zone, means that daylight hours are longer in Vancouver during the summer and shorter during the winter.

In the summer months, the northern sky never gets completely dark. For a few nights around the summer solstice (about 20 June) Vancouver has less than 7.5 hours between sunset and sunrise and twilight will last past 10pm.

In the winter months, the opposite is true, and because of the low cloud cover it can feel darker in Vancouver than elsewhere in British Columbia. Sunset can be as early as 4.15pm and sunrise can be as late as 8.05am.