Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa and known until 1997 as Western Samoa, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania, in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu), two smaller, inhabited ...

uses UTC+13:00 as standard time. Until the end of 2011, it used UTC−11:00 as standard time. Samoa observed

daylight saving time Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time, daylight time (Daylight saving time in the United States, United States and Daylight saving time in Canada, Canada), or summer time (British Summer Time, United Kingdom, ...

from 2010 to 2021. As it is located just west of the

International Date Line The International Date Line (IDL) is the line extending between the South and North Poles that is the boundary between one calendar day and the next. It passes through the Pacific Ocean, roughly following the 180.0° line of longitude and de ...

, Samoa is among the first places on Earth to see each new day, along with

Tonga Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...

Tokelau Tokelau (; ; known previously as the Union Islands, and, until 1976, known officially as the Tokelau Islands) is a dependent territory of New Zealand in the southern Pacific Ocean. It consists of three tropical coral atolls: Atafu, Nukunonu, an ...

, and parts of

Kiribati Kiribati, officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island country in the Micronesia subregion of Oceania in the central Pacific Ocean. Its permanent population is over 119,000 as of the 2020 census, and more than half live on Tarawa. The st ...

Daylight saving time

Because it is located near the equator, Samoa traditionally did not observe daylight saving time. The introduction of daylight saving time was initially planned for 2009 but was postponed for one year in the aftermath of the 2009 Samoa tsunami. From 2010 to 2021, Samoa observed daylight saving time during summer in the Southern Hemisphere. From 2012 to 2021, the schedule was synchronised with neighboring

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, from the last Sunday in September at 03:00 UTC+13:00 (changing to 04:00 UTC+14:00) to the first Sunday in April at 04:00 UTC+14:00 (changing to 03:00 UTC+13:00).

2011 time zone change

Until the end of 2011, Samoa lay east of the International Date Line, observing UTC−11:00 ( UTC−10:00 during daylight saving time). This was in line with neighboring

American Samoa American Samoa is an Territories of the United States, unincorporated and unorganized territory of the United States located in the Polynesia region of the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean. Centered on , it is southeast of the island count ...

, which continues to observe UTC−11:00 (

Samoa Time Zone The Samoa Time Zone or Samoa Standard Time (SST) observes standard time by subtracting eleven hours from Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC−11:00). The clock time in this zone is based on the mean solar time of the 165th meridian west of the G ...

) all year. At the end of Thursday, 29 December 2011, Samoa continued directly to Saturday, 31 December 2011, skipping the entire calendar day of Friday, 30 December 2011 and effectively re-drawing the International Date Line. Prime minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi stated that the change was intended to improve business with New Zealand, Australia, China, and other places in Asia.

IANA time zone database

The

IANA time zone database The tz database is a collaborative compilation of information about the world's time zones and rules for observing daylight saving time, primarily intended for use with computer programs and operating systems. Paul Eggert has been its editor an ...

in the file zone.tab contains one zone for Samoa, named "Pacific/Apia".

References

Geography of Samoa {{standard-stub