British Columbia's New Time Zone: What PCT Means
British Columbia has stopped changing its clocks. The province now keeps UTC−7 all year under the name Pacific time, abbreviated PCT. Here is what that does to every clock you care about.
What happened
BC moved its clocks forward for the last time on 8 March 2026. On 1 November 2026, when most of North America moved back an hour, BC did not. The province stays on UTC−7 from now on, year round.
The old pair of names, Pacific Standard Time and Pacific Daylight Time, no longer applies, because the province no longer alternates between them. The single name is Pacific time, abbreviated PCT.
The part that catches people out
Washington, Oregon and California still change their clocks. They fell back to UTC−8 on 1 November while BC held at UTC−7. So from 1 November 2026 until 14 March 2027, Vancouver is one hour ahead of Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles, cities it has long shared a clock with.
Through those four and a half months, Vancouver instead matches Denver and Phoenix on Mountain Standard Time. On 14 March 2027 the US springs forward to UTC−7, the gap closes, and the Pacific coast reads the same again until the following November.
Check it against the clock
Set an hour in Vancouver and read it off in Seattle. Add any other city to the board.
Vancouver’s gap to other cities
How far ahead each city is, two weeks either side of the change. Highlighted rows are the ones that moved.
| City | Before 1 Nov | After 1 Nov | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney | +18h | +18h | No change |
| Tokyo | +16h | +16h | No change |
| Singapore | +15h | +15h | No change |
| Mumbai | +12h 30m | +12h 30m | No change |
| Dubai | +11h | +11h | No change |
| Berlin | +9h | +8h | An hour closer to Vancouver |
| Paris | +9h | +8h | An hour closer to Vancouver |
| London | +8h | +7h | An hour closer to Vancouver |
| New York | +3h | +2h | An hour closer to Vancouver |
| Toronto | +3h | +2h | An hour closer to Vancouver |
| Chicago | +2h | +1h | An hour closer to Vancouver |
| Los Angeles | same time | −1h | Now an hour behind Vancouver |
| Seattle | same time | −1h | Now an hour behind Vancouver |
Questions this raises
Does all of British Columbia use PCT?
No. Some communities in the northeast and southeast stay on Mountain time to keep step with Alberta and their immediate neighbours. In practice the change brings most of them closer to Vancouver. Fort St. John, Dawson Creek, Fort Nelson and Creston have long kept UTC−7 all year, so they now read the same as Vancouver every day of the year. Cranbrook, Golden and the rest of the southeast follow Alberta’s clock changes, so they match Vancouver in winter and run an hour ahead in summer.
Why do some sites and calendars call it MST?
UTC−7 without daylight saving has long been known as Mountain Standard Time, so software that has the new offset but not the new name often shows MST for Vancouver. The offset is right; only the label differs. The province’s own name is Pacific time, abbreviated PCT, which is what this site shows.
Why is my meeting invite in Arizona time?
Arizona keeps UTC−7 all year and has done for decades, which is now exactly BC’s offset. Every computer and phone already knows Arizona time correctly, whether or not it has received the BC update. So some organisations, including public bodies, schedule in Arizona time on purpose: a 10:00 am invite lands at 10:00 am in BC even on a machine that would get Vancouver wrong.
The machines at risk are the ones that no longer receive updates at all. Windows 10, for example, reached end of support in October 2025, so a Windows 10 computer without extended security updates may never learn that BC stopped changing its clocks.
My computer shows the wrong time for BC. What do I do?
Install your system updates first, since the fix arrives that way. If none are available, set the time zone to Arizona as a stopgap: on Windows choose (UTC−07:00) Arizona, and on a Mac or phone pick Phoenix. The clock will read correctly year round, though it will label itself MST. Switch back to Vancouver once an update arrives, so that the zone name is right too.
Why does my phone still say PST or PDT?
Zone names and rules reach devices through the IANA time zone database and Unicode’s CLDR, and those updates take time to arrive in operating systems and browsers. A device on an older release may show the old abbreviation, or worse, roll back an hour on 1 November when it should not. This site corrects for that, so the times here hold even when your device has not caught up.
Does this change when the sun rises?
No. Daylight is set by latitude and the season, not by what the clock is called. What changes is where the daylight sits on the clock: winter afternoons keep an extra hour of evening light, and winter mornings stay dark an hour longer.
Is the rest of Canada doing this?
Not uniformly. Yukon already keeps a fixed year-round offset, and several provinces have discussed the idea without legislating it. Check the rule for the specific province rather than assuming it follows BC.
Check a specific pair
Each page converts live and handles the new offset.
Sources
Province of British Columbia, B.C.’s new time zone (Pacific time), and Adopting permanent daylight saving time. Offsets on this page are computed from the IANA time zone database.