Egypt Reintroduces DST to Save Energy
By Anne Buckle and Mathew Gundersen. Published 2-Mar-2023
The Egyptian government has announced that the country will reintroduce Daylight Saving Time (DST) from April 28, 2023.
The Egyptian government reintroduces Daylight Saving Time (DST) in an effort to save energy—Image from the capital Cairo.
©iStockphoto.com/Nirian
The New Egyptian DST Schedule
Clocks will be set forward 1 hour:
- Friday, April 28 at 00:00 (midnight),
to 01:00 (1 am) local time on Friday, April 28, 2023.
Clocks will be set back 1 hour:
- Friday, October 27 at 00:00 (midnight),
to 23:00 (11 pm) local time on Thursday, October 26, 2023.
Egypt’s DST schedule in detail
An Effort to Save Energy
After eight years of no clock changes, the Egyptian government has announced the return of DST in an effort to save energy.
Clocks will be set forward one hour on the last Friday of April and back one hour on the last Thursday in October every year, according to the Cabinet.
Not Suspended during Ramadan
The clock change comes after the end of Ramadan, so there will be only one DST period in 2023.
In the past, Egypt has observed four clock changes per year, suspending DST during Ramadan to aid those observing the religious fast during sunlight hours.
On and off in Recent Years
Over the last decade, the seasonal time change in Egypt has been reintroduced and abolished several times.
From 2011 through 2013, Egypt did not use DST. In 2014, the measure returned to ease an acute power crisis, only to be removed again in 2015. In 2016, the North African country first introduced and then scrapped DST in the same year.
Time in Egypt
Egypt observes Eastern European Time (EET) as their standard time with a UTC offset of +2.
When DST is in force, the country observes Eastern European Summer Time (EEST), UTC+3.