Current Dates and Times
across South America...

Across South America, both Daylight Saving Time and Standard Time are in effect.

When countries, islands and regions are using DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME it is indicated by a red (DST).

Although variations may apply, and often with little notice, Daylight Saving Time is not observed in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, the Galapagos Islands, Guyana, Peru, South Georgia Island, Suriname and Venezuela.

Time in Brazil is particularly complicated as Brazil spans four major timezones. Sao Paolo and Rio de Janiero are both located in BRST or BRT timezone depending on the observence of DST, putting them either 3 or 2 hours behind UTC.

The small island of Fernando de Noronha, Brazil is 2 hours behind UTC. The two western timezones of Brazil, Amazonas Time and Acre Time are both 4 hours behind UTC and do not observe DST.

Note that Venezuela is 4.5 hours behind UTC.

Additional details on world timezones

UTC and GMT
an update...

The worldwide standard for coordinated universal time, formerly known as GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), is now abbreviated as UTC (Coordinated Universal Time).

Some sources still refer to it as UTC/GMT and some web browsers, e.g. Mozilla Firefox, still display it as GMT.

The UTC Time (shown directly below) is the standard time zone upon which all other worldwide time zones are based. It never observes daylight saving time.

UTC at Greenwich, England (DST)


Falkland Islands in 2012
an update...

The government of the Falkland Islands has determined that the country will stay on Daylight Savings Time in 2012. Doing so will allow the country more time to contact the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe during the working day.

Check back in April of 2013 to see if this trial switch is made permanent.