Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

n countries do not use

daylight saving time Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time or simply daylight time (United States, Canada, and Australia), and summer time (United Kingdom, European Union, and others), is the practice of advancing clocks (typicall ...

(DST), although some did in the past. Only the territories of the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

Ceuta Ceuta (, , ; ar, سَبْتَة, Sabtah) is a Spanish autonomous city on the north coast of Africa. Bordered by Morocco, it lies along the boundary between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of several Spanish territorie ...

and

Melilla Melilla ( , ; ; rif, Mřič ; ar, مليلية ) is an autonomous city of Spain located in north Africa. It lies on the eastern side of the Cape Three Forks, bordering Morocco and facing the Mediterranean Sea. It has an area of . It was par ...

(Spain) and

Madeira ) , anthem = ( en, "Anthem of the Autonomous Region of Madeira") , song_type = Regional anthem , image_map=EU-Portugal_with_Madeira_circled.svg , map_alt=Location of Madeira , map_caption=Location of Madeira , subdivision_type=Sovereign st ...

(Portugal) implement DST from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October. Although these regions politically belong to Europe, they are geographically part of Africa. They have DST schedules according to

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

rules.

African countries that used to use DST

Egypt

The British first instituted daylight saving time in Egypt during the Second World War, specifically between 1940 and 1945. The practice was stopped after the war, but resumed 12 years later, in 1957.

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

normally observed daylight saving time between the last Friday in April and the last Thursday in September when the clocks were three hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (

UTC+3 UTC+03:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +03:00. In areas using this time offset, the time is three hours later than the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Following the ISO 8601 standard, a time with this offset would be wri ...

). The change occurred one second after 23:59:59 on Thursday to become 1:00:00 on the last Friday in April shortening the day to 23 hours. Summer time ended one second after 23:59:59 to become 23:00:00 on the last Thursday of September lengthening the day to 25 hours. The date did not change one second after the first 23:59:59 occurred; for all practical purposes, midnight did not occur until after the ''second'' 23:59:59. An exception was made for

Ramadan , type = islam , longtype = Religious , image = Ramadan montage.jpg , caption=From top, left to right: A crescent moon over Sarıçam, Turkey, marking the beginning of the Islamic month of Ramadan. Ramadan Quran reading in Bandar Torkaman, Iran. ...

; in 2006 the end of DST took place one week earlier, on 21 September 2006, which took place before the start of the holy month of Ramadan. The same practice recurred in 2007 and 2008, to avoid having longer days in Ramadan. In 2009, summer time ended on Thursday, 20 August, five weeks before the nominal end on the last Thursday in September. In 2010, the summer time started on 30 April and ended on 30 September, but between 10 August and 10 September summer time was cancelled because of Ramadan. The previous government was planning to take a decision to abolish it in 2011 before the

January 25 Revolution The 2011 Egyptian revolution, also known as the 25 January revolution ( ar, ثورة ٢٥ يناير; ), began on 25 January 2011 and spread across Egypt. The date was set by various youth groups to coincide with the annual Egyptian "Police ho ...

. The transitional government abolished daylight saving time on 20 April 2011. On May 7, 2014, the Egyptian government restored daylight saving time starting on 16 May with an exception for the holy month of Ramadan. From 2015 onwards, Egypt no longer observes it. On April 29, 2016, the Egyptian government made plans to restore daylight saving time starting on July 7th, 2016 during

Eid al-Fitr , nickname = Festival of Breaking the Fast, Lesser Eid, Sweet Eid, Sugar Feast , observedby = Muslims , type = Islamic , longtype = Islamic , significance = Commemoration to mark the end of fasting in Ramadan , dat ...

, however later on July 4, 2016, the Egyptian government cancelled these plans to re-introduce DST.

Libya

Libya observed DST each year from 1982 to 1989, 1997, and 2013.

Morocco

(DST) is no longer observed in

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

, advancing to UTC+01:00 permanently since 2019.

Namibia

Independence of Namibia The South African Border War, also known as the Namibian War of Independence, and sometimes denoted in South Africa as the Angolan Bush War, was a largely asymmetric conflict that occurred in Namibia (then South West Africa), Zambia, and Angol ...

the country inherited the time regulations of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

and was in time zone UTC+02:00 all year round. Triggered by fears for school children walking to school before sunrise, Namibian Standard Time, a type of winter time, was introduced in 1993. From 1994 until 2017 Namibia used Winter time, the practice of setting clocks back during winter months by one hour. In this period Namibian Standard Time was at UTC+02:00

Central Africa Time Central Africa Time or CAT, is a time zone used in central and southern Africa. Central Africa Time is two hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC+02:00), which is the same as the adjacent South Africa Standard Time, Egypt Standard Time, ...

in summer, and UTC+01:00 (

West Africa Time West Africa Time, or WAT, is a time zone used in west-central Africa. West Africa Time is one hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC+01:00), which aligns it with Central European Time (CET) during winter, and Western European Summer Time ...

) in winter. Winter time began on the first Sunday in April at 03:00, and lasted until the first Sunday in September, 02:00 hours. In the

Zambezi Region The Zambezi Region is one of the 14 regions of Namibia. It is located in the north-eastern part of the country. It is largely concurrent with the major Zambezi River where it gets its name from. The region has eight constituencies and its capit ...

in the far north-east of Namibia clocks were not changed and remained on Central Africa Time all year round so that during winter time, Namibia spanned two time zones. In the 2010s repeated calls from businesses and private individuals were made to abolish winter time, citing incompatibilities with South Africa, Namibia's main trading partner, as well as a "loss of productivity". The National Council passed the ''Namibian Time Bill 2017'' in August 2017 and repealed the 1993 act, placing Namibia back into the

South African Standard Time South African Standard Time (SAST) is the time zone used by all of South Africa as well as Eswatini and Lesotho. The zone is two hours ahead of UTC ( UTC+02:00) and is the same as Central Africa Time. Daylight saving time is not observed in e ...

zone of UTC+02:00.

Tunisia

Tunisia adopted daylight saving time for the first time in 2005 starting 1 May 2005 and following EU time schedules thereafter. This comes as a move by the government to promote saving of energy. In 2009 the government of Tunisia canceled DST and kept the standard time all year round.

African countries not using DST

These countries or regions do not use daylight saving time, although some have in the past: # (Observed DST in 2002–2004) # # # # # # (Observed DST in 1968–1991; 2003–2009; 2013–2016) # # # (Observed DST in 2011–2014) # # # # # # (Observed DST in 1999–2015) # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # (Observed DST in 1942-1944) # # # # # # # # #

References

{{Africa topic, Daylight saving time in Daylight saving time Geography of Africa