Azerbaijan Time () is the standard

time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, Commerce, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between Country, countries and their Administrative division, subdivisions instead of ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

, four hours ahead of UTC ( UTC+04:00). The daylight saving time adjustment, Azerbaijan Summer Time (), was one hour ahead at UTC+05:00; it was introduced in 1997 and discontinued in March 2016. Azerbaijan Time is the same as Samara Time (

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

), United Arab Emirates Standard Time, Georgia Time, Armenia Time and Seychelles Time.

History

Azerbaijan, formerly the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (Azerbaijan SSR), adhered to timekeeping regulations instituted by the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. In 1930, the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR implemented " Decree Time," which mandated a one-hour advancement of standard time across the entire Soviet territory. This move had been done to utilize maximum daylight and improve efficiency in energy. As a constituent republic, the Azerbaijan SSR observed this adjustment, effectively operating one hour ahead of its natural time zone. In 1981, the Soviet Union introduced daylight saving time (DST), applying an additional one-hour shift during the summer period. This positioned Azerbaijan two hours ahead of its original standard time during the DST period. The regime of DST was standardized across the USSR to maintain consistency in administrative and economic procedures. Decree Time policy was gradually abolished towards the late 1980s. By 1991, just prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union, Decree Time was technically eliminated, and Azerbaijan fell back to regular time. Since its independence in 1991, Azerbaijan retained daylight saving time. In March 2016, however, the Republic of Azerbaijan Cabinet of Ministers announced the permanent abolition of DST due to medical, psychological, and technological considerations. The country has remained on Azerbaijan Time (AZT).

IANA time zone database

The IANA time zone database contains one zone for Azerbaijan in the file zone.tab, named Asia/Baku.

Notes

References

Time by country Geography of Azerbaijan {{Azerbaijan-stub