Colombia time now, live flip clock
Colombia, in South America, keeps one time zone for the whole country, UTC-5, and its clocks do not change. The clock above shows Colombia's time live, with seconds.
Time zone in Colombia
Bogotá, the capital, keeps the same time as Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla and Cartagena, the next four largest cities.
- UTC-5
- Not observed
- Bogotá, Cali, Medellín, Barranquilla
How many hours ahead or behind Colombia
On 7 October 2026, New York is 1 hour ahead of Colombia.
| City | Difference from Colombia |
|---|---|
| New York | 1 hour ahead |
| Madrid | 7 hours ahead |
| Caracas | 1 hour ahead |
| Guayaquil | Same time |
| Toronto | 1 hour ahead |
| Mexico City | 1 hour behind |
| London | 6 hours ahead |
| Kolkata | 10 hours 30 minutes ahead |
| Your time zone | Detected after this page loads |
Convert a time between any two placesDaylight saving dates around the world
How Colombia keeps its time
- The legal time
- INM
- Colombia's official time is called the legal time, la hora legal colombiana. A decree gives the Instituto Nacional de Metrología the job of generating, monitoring and spreading it. A caesium atomic clock generates it, and the institute's website and two internet time servers carry it. The job passed to the institute from the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce.
- No letter code
- UTC-5
- The institute writes Colombia's legal time as an offset, UTC-5, with no letter code. The time zone database also uses numbers for South America, after dropping codes it called invented. So this site shows the offset, and calls the zone Colombia Time in plain English.
- Daylight saving, tried once
- 1
- During a power crisis, President César Gaviria's government put the clocks forward one hour. It was the first time Colombia put its clocks forward. The aim was to save electricity by using more daylight. The clocks went back the next year, and they have not changed since.
- The same clock as its neighbours
- 0 h
- Mainland Ecuador, Peru and Panama keep the same time as Colombia all year. None of the four changes its clocks. Ecuador's Galápagos Islands are 1 hour behind Colombia all year. Venezuela, to the east, is 1 hour ahead of Colombia all year.
Questions about time in Colombia
What time zone is Colombia in?
Colombia, in South America, keeps one time zone for the whole country, UTC-5. Bogotá, Medellín, Cali and Cartagena all show the same time, and the clocks do not change during the year. The Instituto Nacional de Metrología generates the official time, which Colombian law calls the legal time.
Does Colombia have daylight saving time?
No. Colombia stays on UTC-5 all year. It put its clocks forward one hour only once, to save electricity during a power crisis. The clocks went back the next year. New York and Madrid move their clocks forward in summer, and Colombia does not. So the gap with them grows by one hour.
Is it Colombia or Columbia?
The country in South America is Colombia, spelled with an o. Columbia with a u names other places, such as the District of Columbia. That is the US capital, Washington. British Columbia is a province of Canada. Washington is on the same time as Colombia in winter, and one hour ahead in summer.
What is the time difference between Colombia and Spain?
Madrid is 6 hours ahead of Colombia in the European winter. In summer it is one hour more, because Spain moves its clocks forward and Colombia does not. So a morning call from Bogotá reaches Madrid in the afternoon. Madrid's evening is Colombia's midday or early afternoon.
What is the time difference between Colombia and India?
India is 10 hours 30 minutes ahead of Colombia all year, because neither country changes its clocks. The gap does not move with the seasons. So late evening in Bogotá is already the next morning in Mumbai and Delhi, in every month of the year.
Time zone names for developers
| IANA zone | Standard time | Daylight saving time |
|---|---|---|
| America/Bogota | UTC-5 | No |
Sources
We checked each fact on this page against these sources on 1 October 2026. Times, offsets and clock changes come from the time zone database.