Central European Time

Central European Time (CET) is a standard time used in parts of Europe. It is one hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time and is written as UTC+1 or UTC+01:00. When it is 12:00 UTC, it is 13:00 CET.

CET is the standard-time counterpart of Central European Summer Time (CEST), which uses UTC+2. Areas that observe daylight saving time use CET during their standard-time period and move to CEST when summer time begins.

Use

Central European Time is used by countries and territories in central and western Europe. Its use also extends into southern and southeastern Europe. National law determines whether CET applies throughout the year or only during the standard-time period.

The UTC+1 offset is also used in parts of Africa. In those regions, the civil time is generally identified by another time-zone name, particularly West Africa Time, rather than Central European Time.

Time offset and daylight saving time

CET is calculated by adding one hour to UTC. Thus, 08:00 UTC corresponds to 09:00 CET. At 23:00 UTC, local CET is 00:00 on the following day.

Where daylight saving time is observed, clocks are advanced by one hour when CEST begins. The local offset then changes from UTC+1 to UTC+2. When daylight saving time ends, clocks return to CET and the UTC+1 offset.

CET and UTC+1 describe related but different concepts. CET is a named civil time standard, while UTC+1 describes only the numerical difference from UTC. Other time zones can use the same offset without being called Central European Time.

See also

• Central European Summer Time
• Coordinated Universal Time
• Daylight saving time
• UTC+0
• UTC+1
• UTC+2
• Eastern European Time
• West Africa Time
• Time zone