Time in Brazil is calculated using standard time, and the country (including its offshore islands) is divided into four standard

time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude, because it ...

s: UTC−02:00, UTC−03:00, UTC−04:00 and UTC−05:00.

Time zones

Fernando de Noronha time (UTC−02:00)

This is the standard time zone only on a few small offshore

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

islands. The only such island with a permanent population is

Fernando de Noronha Fernando de Noronha () is an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, part of the State of Pernambuco, Brazil, and located off the Brazilian coast. It consists of 21 islands and islets, extending over an area of . Only the eponymous main island is in ...

, with 3,140 inhabitants (2021 estimate), 0.0015% of

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

's population.Population estimates
Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, 2021. The other islands (

Trindade and Martim Vaz Trindade and Martim Vaz ( pt, Trindade e Martim Vaz, ) is an archipelago located in the South Atlantic Ocean about east of the coast of the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo, of which it forms a part. The archipelago has a total area of and a ...

Rocas Atoll The Rocas Atoll ( pt, Atol das Rocas ) is the only atoll in the South Atlantic Ocean. It belongs to the Brazilian State of Rio Grande do Norte. It is located approximately northeast of Natal and west of the Fernando de Noronha archipelago. The ...

and Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago) either are totally uninhabited or have small seasonally rotating Brazilian Navy garrisons or teams of scientists.

Brasília time (UTC−03:00)

The main time zone of Brazil comprises the states in the South,

Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

and Northeast regions (except the small islands mentioned above), plus the states of

Goiás Goiás () is a Brazilian state located in the Center-West region. Goiás borders the Federal District and the states of (from north clockwise) Tocantins, Bahia, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul and Mato Grosso. The state capital is Goi ...

, Tocantins,

Pará Pará is a state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Roraima. To the northwest are the borders of Guyana ...

and Amapá, and the

Federal District A federal district is a type of administrative division of a federation, usually under the direct control of a federal government and organized sometimes with a single municipal body. Federal districts often include capital districts, and they ...

, which includes the national capital city,

Brasília Brasília (; ) is the federal capital of Brazil and seat of government of the Federal District. The city is located at the top of the Brazilian highlands in the country's Central-West region. It was founded by President Juscelino Kubitsche ...

. About 93% of the Brazilian population live in this time zone, which covers about 60% of the country's land area.Territorial areas
Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, 2021. It comprises 26 of the 28 largest metropolitan areas in Brazil.

Amazon time (UTC−04:00)

This time zone is used in the states of Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rondônia, Roraima, and most of Amazonas. Although this time zone covers about 36% of the land area of Brazil (an area larger than

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

), only about 6% of the country's population live there (about 13 million people, slightly more than the city of

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for ' Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...

). Until 2008, the areas of the state of

west of the

Xingu River The Xingu River ( ; pt, Rio Xingu, ; Mẽbêngôkre: ''Byti'', ) is a river in north Brazil. It is a southeast tributary of the Amazon River and one of the largest clearwater rivers in the Amazon basin, accounting for about 5% of its water. ...

and north of the Amazon River were also part of this time zone; then they joined the rest of the state in observing Brasília time (UTC−03:00). Although other changes to Brazilian time zones enacted at that time have since been reverted (see below), western and northern Pará still remain in UTC−03:00.

Acre time (UTC−05:00)

This time zone was reinstated in 2013, after having been abolished for over five years. It is used in the far-western tip of the country, which includes the entire state of Acre and the southwestern portion of the state of Amazonas (west of a line connecting the cities of Tabatinga and

Porto Acre Porto Acre () is a municipality located in the northeast of the Brazilian state of Acre. The economy is mainly based on agriculture. As of 2020 the municipality had an estimated population of 18,824. Location Porto Acre is in the eastern part of ...

). These areas cover only about 4% of the Brazilian territory (although that is still about the size of

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

) and have only about 0.5% of the country's population (little more than 1 million people). On 24 June 2008, these areas advanced their clocks by an hour, so that they became part of the UTC−04:00 time zone. However, in a

non-binding referendum A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...

held on 31 October 2010, a slight majority of Acre voters voted in favour of returning the state to UTC−05:00. On 30 October 2013, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff enacted Law 12876, establishing that the time zone switch would occur on Sunday, 10 November 2013. Since then, the state of Acre and the southwestern part of the state of Amazonas are again 5 hours behind UTC.

Unofficial observance

Unofficially, 32 municipalities in eastern Mato Grosso, located in the Araguaia valley, observe UTC−03:00, Brasília time. This practice started in Barra do Garças in 1998. Banks and government services still observe the legal time in these locations (UTC–04:00).Summer time begins and Araguaia starts following Mato Grosso time
Água Boa News, 10 October 2015.

Daylight saving time

Brazil observed

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; pt, horário de verão, "summer time") in the years of 1931–1933, 1949–1953, 1963–1968 and 1985–2019. Initially it applied to the whole country, but from 1988 it applied only to part of the country, usually the southern regions, where DST is more useful due to a larger seasonal variation in daylight duration. It typically lasted from October or November to February or March. The most recent DST rule specified advancing the time by one hour during the period from 00:00 on the first Sunday in November to 00:00 on the third Sunday in February (postponed by one week if the latter fell on carnival), applicable only to the South,

and Central-West regions, which comprise about 64% of the Brazilian population. During DST, Brasília time moved from UTC−03:00 to UTC−02:00; the other states that did not follow DST observed a change of the offset to Brasília time. Brazil abolished DST in 2019.

IANA time zone database

The

IANA time zone database The tz database is a collaborative compilation of information about the world's time zones, primarily intended for use with computer programs and operating systems. Paul Eggert is its current editor and maintainer, with the organizational backi ...

contains 16 zones for Brazil. Columns marked with * are from the file zone.tab of the database.

Notes

References

External links

Time Service Division
of the National Observatory of Brazil
Legal time in Brazil
{{DEFAULTSORT:Time In Brazil Time in South America