---
title: "St. Thomas Time Zone: Atlantic Standard, No Daylight Saving"
url: https://virginislandvilla.com/usvi/time-zone
description: "St. Thomas and the US Virgin Islands keep Atlantic Standard Time, UTC-4, all year: level with New York from March to November, an hour ahead in winter."
updated: 2026-10-23
source: https://virginislandvilla.com/usvi/time-zone
---

[US Virgin Islands](https://virginislandvilla.com/usvi) · Before you go

# St. Thomas time zone: the one clock the US Virgin Islands keep

Written by Virgin Islands Villas·Updated Oct 2026

St. Thomas and the rest of the US Virgin Islands keep Atlantic Standard Time, four hours behind UTC, and the clocks are left alone all year, so the St. Thomas time zone matches New York through the summer and runs an hour ahead of it in winter. Your phone will know; the ferry timetable assumes you do too.

*A palm frond over still water at dusk in the Virgin Islands, a low green island under a pink sky*

At a glance · checked Oct 2026

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| Time zone | Atlantic Standard Time (AST) The first of the nine US zones, named in the US Code (15 U.S.C. § 263). The Code of Federal Regulations draws it between 52°30' and 67°30' west; St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix sit at about 65° west (checked October 2026). |
| UTC offset | UTC−4, all year Coordinated Universal Time retarded by four hours, 15 U.S.C. § 261 (checked October 2026). |
| Daylight saving | Not observed; the clocks never change The Virgin Islands are on NIST's list of places that do not observe daylight saving time, with Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and most of Arizona (page updated February 9, 2026). |
| Against New York | Same time from March to November; one hour ahead in winter The East Coast moves its clocks at 2 am on the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November, per NIST; the islands stand still. |
| Against Los Angeles | Three hours ahead in summer; four in winter The same rule, from the Pacific zone. Chicago is one and two; Denver two and three. |
| Same clock as | St. Croix, Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands, all year None of the four moves its clocks. A ferry to Tortola changes your passport check, not your watch. |
| Phone code | +1 340 A North American area code, dialed like any US number. The British Virgin Islands are +1 284. |
| Sunset | 5:42 pm in late November to 7 pm in early July Our read from the US Naval Observatory's tables for Charlotte Amalie, 2026. The sun is never up past seven. |

## Atlantic Standard Time, and why the clocks never change

St. Thomas is on Atlantic Standard Time because federal law puts it there. The US Code divides the country into nine zones and sets the first at Coordinated Universal Time minus four hours, under the name Atlantic standard time (15 U.S.C. §§ 261 and 263); the Department of Transportation's rule in the Code of Federal Regulations draws that zone between 52°30' and 67°30' west (49 CFR 71.3), and St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix sit at about 65° west, well inside the line.

The part visitors get wrong is daylight saving. The same law advances the mainland's clocks from 2 am on the second Sunday in March to 2 am on the first Sunday in November, and the Virgin Islands take no part: the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) lists them with Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and most of Arizona as the places where the clocks never move, on its page updated February 9, 2026. The Virgin Islands Department of Tourism puts it in a visitor's words: on East Coast time through spring and summer, an hour ahead once the mainland falls back. The islands do not change zone through the year; the mainland changes around them.

## The time difference from each US time zone, by season

In summer St. Thomas is on East Coast time; in winter it is an hour ahead of the East Coast and four ahead of the West. The table reads from the island's side.

| Where you are flying from | Second Sunday in March to first Sunday in November | The rest of the year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| New York, Boston, Miami, Atlanta (Eastern) | Same time | Islands 1 hour ahead |
| Chicago, Dallas, Houston (Central) | Islands 1 hour ahead | Islands 2 hours ahead |
| Denver, Salt Lake City (Mountain) | Islands 2 hours ahead | Islands 3 hours ahead |
| Phoenix (Arizona keeps standard time too) | Islands 3 hours ahead | Islands 3 hours ahead |
| Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle (Pacific) | Islands 3 hours ahead | Islands 4 hours ahead |

The mainland's dates are the federal rule, as NIST prints them; the islands have no dates because nothing happens. London runs on a different calendar, four hours ahead of the islands on Greenwich time and five on British Summer Time, from late March to late October. Phoenix is the one mainland city that stands still with us, so its three hours never change. For everyone else the winter hour is the one to plan around: a guest from Los Angeles in February lands four hours ahead of home, and dinner at seven is three in the afternoon to the body; a guest from New York is an hour out, and gains it back on the flight home.

## One clock for St. Croix, Puerto Rico and the BVI

The whole territory keeps one time: St. Thomas, St. John, St. Croix and Water Island, with nothing to reset on the seaplane or the ferry between them. Puerto Rico is in the zone by name in the federal regulation, so a connection through San Juan stays inside one time zone and a layover is as long as the ticket says. The British Virgin Islands keep Atlantic Standard Time as well, with no daylight saving, so the ferry to Tortola and the day trip to Jost Van Dyke cross a border without crossing an hour, and the timetables on both sides are printed in the same time; the passport is the only thing that changes at the dock. The islands to the south keep the same offset all year too. The one place nearby that moves its clocks is the mainland.

## What island time means for the flight, ferry and phone

Every time on a ticket is local to the airport it names, so a flight that lands at 2 pm lands at 2 pm by the St. Thomas clock, whatever the hour it left; the zone shows up in the flight's length instead, and a January flight from New York that leaves at 8 am and lands at 1 pm has been in the air four hours, not five. The ferry and car barge timetables between Red Hook and Cruz Bay, and the boats to Tortola, are island time, and so is the last boat, which is the number that matters when a winter flight lands at dusk; the St. John ferry guide and the St. Thomas airport guide carry those.

A phone set to update automatically takes the island's network time when it lands. A watch set by hand moves forward an hour in winter and not at all in summer. Calendar apps are the trap: an app keeps an event in the zone it was made in and shifts it on arrival, so a 7 pm dinner booked from New York in February shows as 8 pm once you land, and the restaurant is expecting you at seven. Book the table in the island's hour.

Calls home run in your favor in winter: an East Coast office that opens at nine is open at ten by the island clock and closes at six, which leaves the morning free, and a West Coast family is three or four hours behind, so island dinner time reaches them in the middle of the afternoon. The tradeoff is the evening. The sun is down before six from November to January, no daylight saving stretches a summer night past seven, and the drive back from dinner is on steep roads after dark.

## Sunrise and sunset in St. Thomas, month by month

The sun rises between a quarter to six and seven and sets between a quarter to six and seven, and because the clock never changes those hours drift only with the season: just over eleven hours of daylight in January, a little over thirteen at midsummer, the even days of a tropical latitude and the other reason a clock change would buy the islands nothing.

| Month, on the 15th | Sunrise | Sunset | Last light |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| January | 6:55 am | 6:04 pm | 6:27 pm |
| February | 6:47 am | 6:21 pm | 6:43 pm |
| March | 6:28 am | 6:30 pm | 6:51 pm |
| April | 6:03 am | 6:37 pm | 6:59 pm |
| May | 5:46 am | 6:46 pm | 7:09 pm |
| June | 5:44 am | 6:57 pm | 7:21 pm |
| July | 5:52 am | 6:59 pm | 7:23 pm |
| August | 6:02 am | 6:46 pm | 7:09 pm |
| September | 6:08 am | 6:22 pm | 6:44 pm |
| October | 6:13 am | 5:57 pm | 6:19 pm |
| November | 6:26 am | 5:42 pm | 6:05 pm |
| December | 6:44 am | 5:46 pm | 6:10 pm |

Our read from the US Naval Observatory's tables for Charlotte Amalie on the 15th of each month of 2026, in island time; last light is the end of civil twilight, about twenty minutes after the sun goes, and the times move by a minute or two from year to year. Plan the sunset dinner for half past six rather than half past eight, a sunset sail to leave at five, and the first swim for seven; where to stand for the sunset is the St. Thomas sunset guide's subject.

## Questions about the US Virgin Islands

### What time zone is St. Thomas in?

Atlantic Standard Time, UTC minus four, the same zone as Puerto Rico and the rest of the US Virgin Islands. St. Thomas does not observe daylight saving time, so it is level with the US East Coast from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November and an hour ahead of it the rest of the year, and NIST lists it among the places that never move their clocks.

### What time is it in St. Thomas right now?

Whatever your phone shows once it has found an island network: it reads the hour from the signal, UTC minus four. From the mainland, add nothing to New York's clock in summer and one hour in winter, one hour to Chicago's in summer and two in winter, three to Los Angeles's in summer and four in winter. The island never changes its clock, so the arithmetic changes only when the mainland does.

### What is the time difference between St. Thomas and the East Coast?

None from March to November, and one hour from November to March, with St. Thomas ahead. New York, Miami and Boston move to daylight time on the second Sunday in March, which brings them level with the islands, and back on the first Sunday in November, which puts the islands an hour ahead again. Noon in Miami in February is 1 pm in St. Thomas; noon in Miami in July is noon here.

### Does St. Thomas have daylight saving time?

No. The US Virgin Islands are on NIST's list of places that do not observe daylight saving time, with Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and most of Arizona, as of its February 2026 update. St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix stay on Atlantic Standard Time through the year, and at this latitude the day's length barely changes, so there is nothing for a clock change to save.

### What time zone is St. Croix in?

Atlantic Standard Time, UTC minus four, the same as St. Thomas and St. John: the whole territory keeps one clock and none of it observes daylight saving. The seaplane and the ferry between Christiansted and Charlotte Amalie change nothing on your watch, and St. Croix is an hour ahead of Miami in winter and level with it in summer.

### Is the British Virgin Islands in the same time zone as the US Virgin Islands?

Yes. Tortola, Virgin Gorda and Jost Van Dyke keep Atlantic Standard Time, UTC minus four, with no daylight saving, so a ferry from St. Thomas or St. John to the BVI changes your passport check and not your watch, and the timetables on both sides are printed in the same hour. The one clock that differs on a BVI day trip is the one you left at home.

Facts checked against [the US Code](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2023-title15/html/USCODE-2023-title15-chap6-subchapIX-sec261.htm), [the Code of Federal Regulations](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-A/part-71/section-71.3), [NIST](https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/popular-links/daylight-saving-time-dst), [the US Naval Observatory](https://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/RS_OneYear) and [the Virgin Islands Department of Tourism](https://www.visitusvi.com/travel-information/travel-tips-frequently-asked-questions/). Checked October 2026.

Related guides

- [The US Virgin Islands flag, and what it means](https://virginislandvilla.com/usvi/flag)

- [The US Virgin Islands short-term rental license and room tax](https://virginislandvilla.com/usvi/usvi-short-term-rental-license-and-tax)

- [All of US Virgin Islands](https://virginislandvilla.com/usvi)

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