Kamchatka Time

Russia's easternmost regular zone — nine hours ahead of Moscow

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PETT (Kamchatka Time) — UTC+12

Last reviewed on April 27, 2026

What is Kamchatka Time?

Kamchatka Time (PETT) is the local time used across Kamchatka Krai, including the regional capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The offset is UTC+12 year-round, with no daylight saving change. The IANA identifier is Asia/Kamchatka. PETT covers the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East, and the same UTC+12 offset is shared by neighboring Chukotka, which uses its own IANA identifier Asia/Anadyr.

UTC+12 means Kamchatka is exactly twelve hours ahead of UTC and nine hours ahead of Moscow. When Moscow's working day starts at 9:00 a.m., Kamchatka is already at 6:00 p.m. — close to the end of its evening.

Quick reference

Why UTC+12?

The Kamchatka Peninsula sits near 158° east longitude. At that line, solar noon falls almost exactly at clock noon when the offset is UTC+10:30 — geographically, halfway between UTC+10 and UTC+11. Russia, like most countries, uses whole-hour offsets, so Kamchatka's options were UTC+11 (one hour ahead of Vladivostok) or UTC+12 (two hours ahead). Holding it at UTC+12 keeps daylight running into the evening rather than ending in mid-afternoon, which in winter, at this latitude and longitude, would mean genuinely short outdoor windows.

Working across nine hours from Moscow

The nine-hour gap between Moscow and Kamchatka is by far the largest internal time difference in Russia. It is wider than the gap between Moscow and London (three hours) or between Moscow and New York (seven or eight hours, depending on US DST). Two practical realities follow.

National broadcast and federal scheduling

Russian federal television, when broadcast live from Moscow at evening prime time (around 20:00 MSK), reaches Kamchatka in the small hours of the next morning. Most programming for Kamchatka audiences is delayed or pre-recorded so it can air at a sensible local hour. Federal government meetings and cabinet sessions are similarly anchored to Moscow time, with the practical effect that Kamchatka officials often participate at the very start or very end of their own working day.

Cross-country business calls

To find a workable hour for a Moscow–Kamchatka call, you typically have to accept that one side is at the edge of its day:

The international date line and Kamchatka

The international date line runs through the Pacific east of Kamchatka. At UTC+12, Kamchatka is at the calendar's leading edge — the day arrives in Kamchatka before it arrives almost anywhere else inhabited. A traveler flying from, say, Anchorage (UTC−9 in winter) to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky crosses both the date line and the equivalent of 21 hours of clock difference, even though the geographic distance is only a few thousand kilometers. The corollary is that from Russia, Kamchatka is the place where the new year begins. New Year's celebrations there happen nine hours before Moscow's.

Comparison with neighboring Russian zones

Magadan Time (UTC+11)

To the west and north of Kamchatka, Magadan and Sakhalin Island use UTC+11, one hour behind. The IANA identifier is Asia/Magadan.

Vladivostok Time (UTC+10)

Two hours behind Kamchatka, the Vladivostok zone covers Russia's southern Pacific cities — Vladivostok itself and Khabarovsk. A direct flight between Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky lands "two hours later on the clock" than the elapsed flight time would suggest.

Anadyr (Chukotka)

Anadyr uses the same UTC+12 offset but with the IANA identifier Asia/Anadyr. The two zones run identical clocks today; the separate identifier exists because Chukotka briefly used UTC+12 with DST and a different historical pattern from Kamchatka, which is the kind of detail timezone software needs to convert past dates correctly.

A short historical note

Kamchatka has bounced between UTC+12 and UTC+11 several times. The most recent significant change was in 2010, when the region was moved to UTC+11 as part of an effort to reduce the country's number of zones, and then back to UTC+12 in 2011 as part of the broader national time reform. Russia's 2014 decision to abolish daylight saving fixed the offset where it remains today. The wider story of those national-level decisions is on the DST in Russia page.

Common mistakes

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