Current time in Pretoria, South Africa
The current local time in Pretoria is shown below. Pretoria observes SAST.
What's the daylight saving status?
Pretoria does not observe daylight saving time. The local offset is fixed year-round.
When are sunrise & sunset today?
What are the timezone facts?
- Timezone
- Africa/Johannesburg
- Standard abbreviation
- SAST
- Observes daylight saving
- No
- Country
- 🇿🇦 South Africa
- Business hours
- 09:00 – 17:00 local
What's the timezone history of Pretoria?
Pretoria observes South African Standard Time at UTC+2 year-round, the same single-zone offset shared by the rest of the country. The wartime DST experiment ended in 1944. The country's three-capital arrangement (Pretoria for administration, Cape Town for the parliament, Bloemfontein for the judiciary) doesn't create any internal time differences. The city's interior longitude around 28 degrees east places wall time slightly ahead of mean solar noon. Botswana and Zimbabwe to the north and south use the same Central Africa Time offset.
What are the working hours in Pretoria?
National government administration dominates the working economy, with most national departments headquartered in the city. Office hours in the public sector typically run 07:30 to 16:00, an earlier rhythm than the Johannesburg commercial sector to the south. The University of Pretoria (around 50,000 students) and several other universities form a substantial higher-education employment base. The Union Buildings host major state events, and Pretoria's proximity to the Cradle of Humankind UNESCO site to the south-west generates some tourism. The Jacaranda blossoming in October produces a distinctive seasonal civic event.
Where is Pretoria?
Pretoria is the administrative capital of South Africa, sitting around 60 kilometres north of Johannesburg in Gauteng province. The city proper holds around 740,000 residents within the wider City of Tshwane metropolitan municipality of approximately 3.6 million. The city sits at around 1,340 metres elevation in the relatively warmer Apies River valley, a roughly 200-metre drop below the Highveld plateau on which Johannesburg sits. The Union Buildings, seat of national government, occupy a prominent hilltop site east of the city centre.