New Zealand Time

Don't forget to cater for the New Zealand time differences when planning, making enquiries, and booking the various components of your holiday. If you need to contact anyone in NZ, and you make the call in the middle of the day, it may well be in the middle of the night over there and you may not even get an answer.

New Zealand Time Zone

The New Zealand Time Zone (NZST) is 12 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) and 2 hours ahead of Australian Eastern Standard Time. Daylight savings is in operation, with clocks being put forward one hour to equal GMT+13 in the summer on the first Sunday in October. The summer ends on the last Sunday of March and the clocks are then put back to equal GMT+12. Of course, being in the southern hemisphere, October is spring and March is Autumn, the opposite to the northern hemisphere.

Sunrise

NZ is one of the first places in the world to welcome new sunrise every day due to being close to the international date line. Pitt Island in the Chatham Islands is the first place to see the sunrise each new year being 45 minutes ahead of the main Islands of NZ. On the main Islands, a small town called Gisborne on the east coast of the North Island is the first place to see each new day a it sticks out a bit further towards the dateline than anywhere else on the main Islands.

What Time is it in New Zealand?

Below is a clock showing the current hour and minutes in NZ and will help you plan when to make the phone calls you need make to organise your holiday.

Auckland