Reviewed 2026-09-06
Diaspora guide
See the current time in Lagos, Abuja and every Nigerian state, then convert Nigeria time to the UK, US, Canada and other time zones.
Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano and every other Nigerian city share one clock. Differences with London, New York and Toronto change when those places enter or leave daylight saving time, so use a named-city converter rather than memorising a fixed gap.
Live Nigeria time
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Conversion uses current daylight-saving rules on your device.
Nigeria uses West Africa Time, commonly written as WAT. Its IANA time-zone identifier is Africa/Lagos, and its standard offset is one hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. Nigeria has one national time zone, so there is no time difference between Lagos and Abuja or between the north and south.
WAT is not the same label as British Summer Time, even when both clocks happen to show UTC+1. Nigeria remains on UTC+1; the UK changes between GMT and BST.
During UK winter, Nigeria is usually one hour ahead of London. During British Summer Time, London and Nigeria usually show the same clock time. The change does not come from Nigeria; it comes from the UK moving its clocks.
For calls, interviews and church or family events, write both the city and date: “3:00 pm Lagos time on 12 October.” That lets calendar software apply the correct rule.
North America has several time zones, so “US time” is incomplete. New York, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles can all show different times. Many areas also observe daylight saving time, changing their gap with Nigeria during the year.
Ask for a city or time-zone name, then use the converter above. This matters around the weeks when clocks change, because Nigeria does not make a matching change.
Avoid abbreviations such as CST unless the country is obvious; the same abbreviation can mean different offsets in different places.
If a Lagos team schedules a 10:00 am WAT meeting with London in January, London will normally join at 9:00 am. In July, both cities will normally show 10:00 am because the UK is on British Summer Time. A New York participant needs a different conversion, and that difference can change when US daylight saving starts or ends.
For a livestream advertised to several countries, publish the primary time as “7:00 pm WAT (Africa/Lagos)” and add a calendar link. For an application deadline, include the date, time zone and whether the deadline closes at the start or end of that minute. These details prevent a one-hour assumption from becoming a missed interview or late submission.
Check that automatic date, time and time zone are enabled and that the selected zone is Africa/Lagos. A phone brought from another country can retain its old zone when automatic location is disabled. VPN use should not normally change the device clock, but a website may guess location incorrectly from an IP address.
For travel bookings, trust the local times printed on the itinerary: airline departure and arrival times are normally shown in each airport’s local time. The displayed duration already accounts for time-zone differences.
Nigeria uses West Africa Time, which is UTC+1. It is one hour ahead of GMT when GMT means UTC+0.
No. Nigeria does not currently observe daylight saving time.
Yes. All Nigerian states use the same national time zone.
The UK changes between GMT and British Summer Time; Nigeria stays on UTC+1.
Use the IANA identifier Africa/Lagos.
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