South African Daylight Saving Time
https://www.timeanddate.com/time/change/south-africa?year=1942 https://www.timeanddate.com/time/change/south-africa?year=1944 https://www.timeanddate.com/time/change/south-africa Hello South Africa has Daylight Saving Time every year from September to April at every first Sunday of September at UTC/GMT+2 South Africa Standard Time from 00:00 to 01:00 South African Summer Time UTC/GMT+3 and it ends at every last Sunday of April at 01:00 to 0:00 back to South Africa Standard Time UTC/GMT+2
On 2025-09-29 11:05, Saras Sing via tz wrote:
https://www.timeanddate.com/time/change/south-africa?year=1942 https://www.timeanddate.com/time/change/south-africa?year=1944 https://www.timeanddate.com/time/change/south-africa
TZDB's current data matches those URLs. For example, the command "zdump -V -c 1910,2026 Africa/Johannesburg" outputs: Africa/Johannesburg Sat Sep 19 23:59:59 1942 UT = Sun Sep 20 01:59:59 1942 SAST isdst=0 gmtoff=7200 Africa/Johannesburg Sun Sep 20 00:00:00 1942 UT = Sun Sep 20 03:00:00 1942 SAST isdst=1 gmtoff=10800 Africa/Johannesburg Sat Mar 20 22:59:59 1943 UT = Sun Mar 21 01:59:59 1943 SAST isdst=1 gmtoff=10800 Africa/Johannesburg Sat Mar 20 23:00:00 1943 UT = Sun Mar 21 01:00:00 1943 SAST isdst=0 gmtoff=7200 Africa/Johannesburg Sat Sep 18 23:59:59 1943 UT = Sun Sep 19 01:59:59 1943 SAST isdst=0 gmtoff=7200 Africa/Johannesburg Sun Sep 19 00:00:00 1943 UT = Sun Sep 19 03:00:00 1943 SAST isdst=1 gmtoff=10800 Africa/Johannesburg Sat Mar 18 22:59:59 1944 UT = Sun Mar 19 01:59:59 1944 SAST isdst=1 gmtoff=10800 Africa/Johannesburg Sat Mar 18 23:00:00 1944 UT = Sun Mar 19 01:00:00 1944 SAST isdst=0 gmtoff=7200
South Africa has Daylight Saving Time every year from September to April at every first Sunday of September at UTC/GMT+2 South Africa Standard Time from 00:00 to 01:00 South African Summer Time UTC/GMT+3 and it ends at every last Sunday of April at 01:00 to 0:00 back to South Africa Standard Time UTC/GMT+2
Thanks, but this doesn't match either TZDB or timeanddate.com; do you have a source for this?
On Mon, 29 Sept 2025 at 17:56, Saras Sing via tz <tz@iana.org> wrote:
South Africa has Daylight Saving Time every year from September to April
Thanks for writing in! Our data matches that of timeanddate.com which shows that South Africa only observed DST in the summers of 1942/1943 and 1943/1944 and has not used it since. Are you able to cite a government publication, newspaper, or similarly reputable source that supports your claims to the contrary? Given that these lines in our data haven't been touched since ~1997 and common downstream data providers tend to match it, I would be very surprised if our data for such a populous country were wrong in this way and we hadn't heard about it long ago. -- Tim Parenti
Yes indeed South Africa was wrong in this way for Daylight Saving Time but will you able to fix the Daylight Saving Time for South Africa? On Tue, 30 Sept 2025, 00:14 Tim Parenti, <tim@timtimeonline.com> wrote:
On Mon, 29 Sept 2025 at 17:56, Saras Sing via tz <tz@iana.org> wrote:
South Africa has Daylight Saving Time every year from September to April
Thanks for writing in! Our data matches that of timeanddate.com which shows that South Africa only observed DST in the summers of 1942/1943 and 1943/1944 and has not used it since. Are you able to cite a government publication, newspaper, or similarly reputable source that supports your claims to the contrary? Given that these lines in our data haven't been touched since ~1997 and common downstream data providers tend to match it, I would be very surprised if our data for such a populous country were wrong in this way and we hadn't heard about it long ago.
-- Tim Parenti
On Mon, 29 Sept 2025 at 21:00, Saras Sing <sarassing57@gmail.com> wrote:
Yes indeed South Africa was wrong in this way for Daylight Saving Time but will you able to fix the Daylight Saving Time for South Africa?
Are you able to clarify further how you feel our data for South Africa may be wrong (for which years, for which dates, etc.) and, again, provide some reputable sources supporting that claim? Absent that, given the high confidence we have in this case in our existing data, it would at the very least be extremely helpful to have specific examples of how our data handles specific conversions in ways that differ from what you expect, e.g.: $ LC_ALL=C TZ=Africa/Johannesburg date -d "1943-09-30 08:00:00 UTC" Thu Sep 30 11:00:00 SAST 1943 $ LC_ALL=C TZ=Africa/Johannesburg date -d "2025-09-30 08:00:00 UTC" Tue Sep 30 10:00:00 SAST 2025 A better understanding of what specifically you think is wrong will help us determine whether the supposed error is in our data or somewhere in how you or your toolchain may be interpreting it. -- Tim Parenti
Yeah so I feel that South Africa has Daylight Saving Time every year from September to March/April etc which feels South African time now is wrong for now On Tue, 30 Sept 2025, 03:36 Tim Parenti, <tim@timtimeonline.com> wrote:
On Mon, 29 Sept 2025 at 21:00, Saras Sing <sarassing57@gmail.com> wrote:
Yes indeed South Africa was wrong in this way for Daylight Saving Time but will you able to fix the Daylight Saving Time for South Africa?
Are you able to clarify further how you feel our data for South Africa may be wrong (for which years, for which dates, etc.) and, again, provide some reputable sources supporting that claim? Absent that, given the high confidence we have in this case in our existing data, it would at the very least be extremely helpful to have specific examples of how our data handles specific conversions in ways that differ from what you expect, e.g.:
$ LC_ALL=C TZ=Africa/Johannesburg date -d "1943-09-30 08:00:00 UTC" Thu Sep 30 11:00:00 SAST 1943 $ LC_ALL=C TZ=Africa/Johannesburg date -d "2025-09-30 08:00:00 UTC" Tue Sep 30 10:00:00 SAST 2025
A better understanding of what specifically you think is wrong will help us determine whether the supposed error is in our data or somewhere in how you or your toolchain may be interpreting it.
-- Tim Parenti
On Mon, 29 Sept 2025 at 21:44, Saras Sing <sarassing57@gmail.com> wrote:
Yeah so I feel that South Africa has Daylight Saving Time every year from September to March/April etc which feels South African time now is wrong for now
Currently, our data shows South Africa observing year-round UTC+2 since 1944. The output from the following commands I just ran demonstrates our current understanding as reflected in our data: $ export LC_ALL=C ; TZ=Etc/UTC date ; TZ=Africa/Johannesburg date Tue Sep 30 02:00:39 UTC 2025 Tue Sep 30 04:00:39 SAST 2025 It sounds like you're saying that clocks were instead moved forward in South Africa sometime a few weeks ago. That would mean that, at the time I'm sending this message (~02:00 UTC), it should presently be ~05:00 in South Africa instead of the ~04:00 our data currently calculates as above. If that is what you mean, is this a newly-adopted practice? I'm afraid I'm not finding any information supporting this claim from a cursory news search. Without solid evidence of folks in South Africa actually observing such a time change en masse, we won't be able to help. -- Tim Parenti
It sounds like you're saying that clocks were instead moved forward in South Africa sometime a few weeks ago. That would mean that, at the time I'm sending this message (~02:00 UTC), it should presently be ~05:00 in South Africa instead of the ~04:00 our data currently calculates as above. My answer YES On Tue, 30 Sept 2025, 04:02 Tim Parenti, <tim@timtimeonline.com> wrote:
On Mon, 29 Sept 2025 at 21:44, Saras Sing <sarassing57@gmail.com> wrote:
Yeah so I feel that South Africa has Daylight Saving Time every year from September to March/April etc which feels South African time now is wrong for now
Currently, our data shows South Africa observing year-round UTC+2 since 1944. The output from the following commands I just ran demonstrates our current understanding as reflected in our data:
$ export LC_ALL=C ; TZ=Etc/UTC date ; TZ=Africa/Johannesburg date Tue Sep 30 02:00:39 UTC 2025 Tue Sep 30 04:00:39 SAST 2025
It sounds like you're saying that clocks were instead moved forward in South Africa sometime a few weeks ago. That would mean that, at the time I'm sending this message (~02:00 UTC), it should presently be ~05:00 in South Africa instead of the ~04:00 our data currently calculates as above.
If that is what you mean, is this a newly-adopted practice? I'm afraid I'm not finding any information supporting this claim from a cursory news search. Without solid evidence of folks in South Africa actually observing such a time change en masse, we won't be able to help.
-- Tim Parenti
SA expat chiming in. Just checked with my relatives back in SA - no current news internal to the country about the adoption of DST. On Tue, 30 Sept 2025 at 03:02, Tim Parenti via tz <tz@iana.org> wrote:
On Mon, 29 Sept 2025 at 21:44, Saras Sing <sarassing57@gmail.com> wrote:
Yeah so I feel that South Africa has Daylight Saving Time every year from September to March/April etc which feels South African time now is wrong for now
Currently, our data shows South Africa observing year-round UTC+2 since 1944. The output from the following commands I just ran demonstrates our current understanding as reflected in our data:
$ export LC_ALL=C ; TZ=Etc/UTC date ; TZ=Africa/Johannesburg date Tue Sep 30 02:00:39 UTC 2025 Tue Sep 30 04:00:39 SAST 2025
It sounds like you're saying that clocks were instead moved forward in South Africa sometime a few weeks ago. That would mean that, at the time I'm sending this message (~02:00 UTC), it should presently be ~05:00 in South Africa instead of the ~04:00 our data currently calculates as above.
If that is what you mean, is this a newly-adopted practice? I'm afraid I'm not finding any information supporting this claim from a cursory news search. Without solid evidence of folks in South Africa actually observing such a time change en masse, we won't be able to help.
-- Tim Parenti
-- David Laing
On 2025-09-30 02:05:22 (+0800), Saras Sing via tz wrote:
South Africa has Daylight Saving Time every year from September to April at every first Sunday of September at UTC/GMT+2 South Africa Standard Time from 00:00 to 01:00 South African Summer Time UTC/GMT+3 and it ends at every last Sunday of April at 01:00 to 0:00 back to South Africa Standard Time UTC/GMT+2
Nonsense. Philip
Greetings from South Africa! In South Africa, we have not observed DST in my lifetime, nor are there any plans to implement DST that have been publicised. The current legal definition is "South African Standard Time (SAST) is defined as Coordinated Universal Time plus two (2) hours (or UTC +02:00)", as defined in South African National Government Gazette No. 40125 of 8 July 2016. [https://web.archive.org/web/20200128084045/https://www.gov.za/sites/default/...] Cheers, Michael On Tue, 30 Sept 2025 at 04:02, Tim Parenti via tz <tz@iana.org> wrote:
On Mon, 29 Sept 2025 at 21:44, Saras Sing <sarassing57@gmail.com> wrote:
Yeah so I feel that South Africa has Daylight Saving Time every year from September to March/April etc which feels South African time now is wrong for now
Currently, our data shows South Africa observing year-round UTC+2 since 1944. The output from the following commands I just ran demonstrates our current understanding as reflected in our data:
$ export LC_ALL=C ; TZ=Etc/UTC date ; TZ=Africa/Johannesburg date Tue Sep 30 02:00:39 UTC 2025 Tue Sep 30 04:00:39 SAST 2025
It sounds like you're saying that clocks were instead moved forward in South Africa sometime a few weeks ago. That would mean that, at the time I'm sending this message (~02:00 UTC), it should presently be ~05:00 in South Africa instead of the ~04:00 our data currently calculates as above.
If that is what you mean, is this a newly-adopted practice? I'm afraid I'm not finding any information supporting this claim from a cursory news search. Without solid evidence of folks in South Africa actually observing such a time change en masse, we won't be able to help.
-- Tim Parenti
participants (6)
-
David Laing -
Michael Gooden -
Paul Eggert -
Philip Paeps -
Saras Sing -
Tim Parenti