Check the current local time in Shanghai, China. Shanghai uses the Asia/Shanghai time zone, with CST (UTC +8:00) during standard time.
CST
UTC +8:00
Used outside daylight saving time
Not Observed
Year-round standard time
No DST change
Standard time year-round
No seasonal offset changes
Shanghai runs on China Standard Time (CST, UTC+8) year-round — same offset as the entire Chinese mainland. No DST. Business hours 9 AM - 6 PM in coastal Shanghai, often "996" (9 AM - 9 PM, 6 days a week) in Chinese tech — though this has legally been challenged and is less overt than a decade ago. SSE (Shanghai Stock Exchange) trading runs 9:30 AM - 3 PM CST with a 1.5-h lunch break.
East Asia — China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Mongolia — sits mostly at UTC+8 (China's single-timezone policy across the whole country) or UTC+9 (Japan, Korea). None observe DST anymore (Japan ended its post-WW2 experiment in the 1950s), so offsets are fixed. The region's single-large-zone footprint makes cross-Asia coordination unusually easy compared to Europe or North America.
Shanghai is located in China and uses the Asia/Shanghai time zone. For anyone coordinating calls or meetings internationally, the key question is rarely "what time is it" — it's which hours in Shanghai overlap with your own working day. Use the world clock comparison further down the page to see at a glance how Shanghai aligns with other major cities.
Scheduling tip: Always reference a city name in calendar invites rather than a fixed UTC offset. Calendar apps like Google Calendar and Outlook will automatically adjust for any clock changes on both ends, so your meeting stays at the intended local time for everyone involved.
Local Exchange
Mainland China's largest exchange with a 90-minute lunch break.
These cities share the same time zone as Shanghai — when it's 2:59:07 PM here, it's the same local time there.
Major cities in China — some may be in a different time zone than Shanghai if the country spans multiple zones.
Find the perfect overlap time between your timezone and Shanghai. Our calculator shows when business hours align.
Calculate Best Calling TimeEverything you need to know about Shanghai time
