Current time in Seoul, South Korea
The current local time in Seoul is shown below. Seoul observes KST.
Daylight saving time
Seoul does not observe daylight saving time. The local offset is fixed year-round.
Sunrise & sunset today
Timezone facts
- Timezone
- Asia/Seoul
- Standard abbreviation
- KST
- Observes daylight saving
- No
- Country
- 🇰🇷 South Korea
- Business hours
- 09:00 – 18:00 local
Seoul in context
Seoul lies in the lower Han River basin near the geographic centre of the Korean Peninsula, around 50 kilometres south of the heavily fortified border with North Korea. The city covers approximately 605 square kilometres and holds around 9.6 million residents, with the wider Seoul Capital Area including Incheon, Suwon, and other surrounding cities reaching above 26 million, half of South Korea's total population. The Han River divides the city north and south, with the historic centre on the northern bank and the modern Gangnam district to the south.
Timezone history of Seoul
South Korea runs on Korea Standard Time at UTC+9, the same offset as Japan and 30 minutes ahead of where the country's longitude would naturally place it. Between 1954 and 1961, South Korea briefly operated on UTC+8:30, deliberately distinct from Japan, before reverting to the current alignment. Periodic proposals to move back to a half-hour offset have surfaced over the decades, most recently in the late 2010s, but none has reached law. Daylight saving was used during the 1988 Seoul Olympics but not since.
Working hours in Seoul
Working hours in Seoul have been a major social and political topic for the past decade. A 52-hour cap on weekly working time was phased in from 2018, replacing what had been one of the longest standard workweeks in the developed world. Offices typically run 09:00 to 18:00 with a one-hour lunch, although hospitality and service sectors extend much later. The two major holiday clusters are the lunar new year Seollal in January or February and Chuseok in autumn, each producing a multi-day national pause.