Current time in Amsterdam, Netherlands
The current local time in Amsterdam is shown below. Amsterdam observes CET in winter and CEST during daylight saving time.
Daylight saving time
Sunrise & sunset today
Timezone facts
Amsterdam in context
Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands and its largest city, with around 920,000 residents in the municipality and 2.5 million across the wider Randstad ring that includes The Hague, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. The city is built on a fan of canals and reclaimed land at the head of the IJ inlet, much of it sitting at or below sea level and dependent on the long-established system of dikes, locks, and pumps that protects the western Netherlands.
Timezone history of Amsterdam
The Netherlands ran on its own peculiar Amsterdam Time of UTC+0:19:32 from 1909, an offset based on the meridian passing through the old observatory in the city centre, until simplifying to UTC+0:20 in 1937. The country then aligned with Greenwich Mean Time later that year before adopting Central European Time under German occupation in 1940. It has remained on CET since the war, with daylight saving applied across the EU on the last-Sunday rule.
Working hours in Amsterdam
The Netherlands has among the highest rates of part-time working in the developed world, with around half of all employed Dutch adults working fewer than 36 hours a week. Standard full-time hours in Amsterdam run 09:00 to 17:30 with a short lunch break, typically a sandwich at the desk rather than a sit-down meal. Public holidays include King's Day on 27 April, when much of the city becomes one large flea market, and a stable set of Christian holidays around Easter, Ascension, and Christmas.