Current time in Paris, France
The current local time in Paris is shown below. Paris observes CET in winter and CEST during daylight saving time.
Daylight saving time
Sunrise & sunset today
Timezone facts
Paris in context
Paris sits at a curve of the River Seine in northern France, near the centre of the Île-de-France region. The city proper covers just over 100 square kilometres and holds around 2.1 million residents, but the wider metropolitan area extends across the entire Île-de-France and reaches around 12.5 million, making it among the largest urban populations in Europe. The compact city core, organised into 20 administrative arrondissements arranged in a clockwise spiral from the centre, sits well within the périphérique ring road.
Timezone history of Paris
Until 1911, French legal time was based on Paris Mean Time at 9 minutes 21 seconds ahead of Greenwich, with railway clocks across the country deliberately set 5 minutes behind that reference to give passengers a margin to board. The country switched to Greenwich Mean Time that year and held to it for nearly three decades, before shifting to Central European Time under German occupation in 1940. The current Paris offset of UTC+1 in winter and UTC+2 in summer dates from that wartime change.
Working hours in Paris
Paris business hours track French national patterns of 09:00 to 18:00 with a long midday break, though the city's restaurants (bistros, brasseries, and the lunchtime menus of formal kitchens) handle a far higher throughput than provincial counterparts and turn over in tightly defined services. The summer closure of small businesses for two to three weeks in August has eased over the past decade as tourism has grown, but central Paris still feels noticeably emptier between Bastille Day and the rentrée at the start of September.