Pakistan updates standard time law after 78 years

Pakistan updates standard time law after 78 years

Islamabad: Parliament has approved an amendment to Pakistan’s law on standard time, removing a decades-old reference that described the country’s time as five and a half hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Under the amendment, Pakistan Standard Time will officially stand at five hours ahead of GMT, bringing the legal definition in line with the time zone Pakistan has actually followed for decades.

The Standard Time (Interpretation of References) (Amendment) Bill, 2026, cleared the National Assembly on May 11 and the Senate on August 18. The bill now awaits the President’s assent before becoming law.

The amendment changes the Standard Time (Interpretation of References) Ordinance, 1943, by deleting the words “and one-half” from the existing provision.

Officials said the change will not affect clocks, working hours or the daily routine of citizens. Pakistan has already operated on UTC+05:00, commonly referred to as GMT+5, for more than seven decades.

The move aims to remove the discrepancy between the time standard written in the law and the time Pakistan has actually observed since 1951.

Once the President gives assent, the amended provision will formally establish the current standard time in Pakistan in the country’s legal framework.