C# TimeZoneInfo

last modified August 21, 2023

In this article we work time zones in C#.

A time zone is a geographical region in which the same time is used. For instance, in Bratislava, Prague, or Budapest the Central Europe Standard Time is used.

TimeZoneInfo is the main class for working with time zones in C#. It is an improvement over the limited TimeZone. It allows us to enumerate available time zones in the system, retrieve a time zone defined by the operating system, convert times between different time zones, or serializing a time zone for later usage.

C# TimeZoneInfo.GetSystemTimeZones

The TimeZoneInfo.GetSystemTimeZones returns a sorted collection of all the time zones available on the local system.

using System.Collections.ObjectModel;

ReadOnlyCollection<TimeZoneInfo> zones = TimeZoneInfo.GetSystemTimeZones();

foreach (TimeZoneInfo zone in zones)
{
    Console.WriteLine(zone.Id);
}

The program retrieves and print all the available system time zones.

$ dotnet run
Dateline Standard Time
UTC-11
Aleutian Standard Time
Hawaiian Standard Time
Marquesas Standard Time
Alaskan Standard Time
UTC-09
Pacific Standard Time (Mexico)
UTC-08
Pacific Standard Time
...

C# TimeZoneInfo.Local

The TimeZoneInfo.Local property returns a TimeZoneInfo object that represents the local time zone.

TimeZoneInfo local = TimeZoneInfo.Local;
Console.WriteLine(local.DisplayName);
Console.WriteLine(local.Id);
Console.WriteLine(local.DaylightName);
Console.WriteLine(local.SupportsDaylightSavingTime);

In the program, we print the DisplayName, Id, DaylightName, and SupportsDaylightSavingTime properties of the local TimeZoneInfo object.

$ dotnet run 
(UTC+01:00) Belgrade, Bratislava, Budapest, Ljubljana, Prague
Central Europe Standard Time
Central Europe Daylight Time
True

C# TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById

The TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById creates a new instance of TimeZoneInfo based on the given identifier.

TimeZoneInfo tzi = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById("Russian Standard Time");

Console.WriteLine(tzi.DisplayName);
Console.WriteLine(tzi.Id);
Console.WriteLine(tzi.StandardName);
Console.WriteLine(tzi.SupportsDaylightSavingTime);

In the program, we create a timezone object for the Russian Standard Time and print its basic properties.

$ dotnet run 
(UTC+03:00) Moscow, St. Petersburg
Russian Standard Time
Russia TZ 2 Standard Time
True

C# TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTime

The TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTime converts a time to the time in the given time zone.

Console.WriteLine(TimeZoneInfo.Local);
DateTime now = DateTime.Now;
Console.WriteLine(now);

Console.WriteLine("-----------------------------------");

TimeZoneInfo tzi = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById("Russian Standard Time");
Console.WriteLine(tzi.DisplayName);
DateTime target = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTime(now, tzi);
Console.WriteLine(target);

We get the current local datetime and convert it into the Russian Standard Time.

$ dotnet run 
(UTC+01:00) Belgrade, Bratislava, Budapest, Ljubljana, Prague
8/21/2023 4:43:35 PM
-----------------------------------
(UTC+03:00) Moscow, St. Petersburg
8/21/2023 5:43:35 PM

Source

TimeZoneInfo class - language reference

In this article we have worked with time zones in C# using TimeZoneInfo.

Author

My name is Jan Bodnar and I am a passionate programmer with many years of programming experience. I have been writing programming articles since 2007. So far, I have written over 1400 articles and 8 e-books. I have over eight years of experience in teaching programming.

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