Convert SGT (Singapore Time) to GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)

Best time to schedule a meeting

Standard 9–5 working hours do not overlap at all between SGT and GMT. Someone has to take an early or late call — or use asynchronous communication instead.

SGT to GMT conversion table

About SGT

Singapore Time (SGT) is UTC+8. It is used in Singapore and Malaysia.

Singapore Time is UTC+8 with no daylight saving. The offset is a historical curiosity: Singapore sits at about 104°E, which is geographically UTC+7, and moved to +8 in 1982 to align with Malaysia and Hong Kong for trade. The result is that the sun is at its highest around 1pm rather than noon, and sunrise is late all year.

About GMT

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is UTC+0. It is used in the UK and Ireland in winter, Portugal, Iceland and much of West Africa.

The trap with GMT is that the United Kingdom is not on it for most of the year. From late March to late October the UK runs BST, UTC+1, so a meeting agreed "10am GMT" with a London colleague in July is an hour out unless both parties meant the abbreviation literally. Broadcasters and airlines avoid the ambiguity by saying UTC. GMT itself is fixed at UTC+0 and does not shift; it is the UK's clocks that move away from it and back.

Does this gap change with the seasons?

This gap is seasonal. The abbreviations themselves are fixed offsets, but the region on GMT switches to BST (UTC+1) from late March to late October. So the 8-hour figure on this page is correct for the part of the year when both places are actually on these abbreviations, and changes by an hour outside it.

SGT does not shift, so the whole change comes from one side. A recurring meeting fixed in SGT will appear to move by an hour for everyone on the other side, twice a year, without anyone changing anything.

This is the reason scheduling systems store an IANA zone such as Region/City rather than an offset or an abbreviation: the zone knows its own rules and the offset does not.

Frequently asked questions