What time is it in Jamaica?

Jamaica stays on UTC−5:00 all year. Its offset from UTC never moves, so its relationship to places that do change shifts twice a year instead — which is usually why someone checks. Right now it is 5 hours behind UTC and on the same clock as New York.

Jamaica is on the same clock as New York right now, so a time in one is the same time in the other.

To convert a specific time rather than read the current one, the converter shows both directions with the next clock change for each.

The day is 11 hours 19 minutes long in Jamaica, and losing 1 minute a day. The sun peaks at 11:51 am, 9 minutes before noon on the clock. A UTC offset is a promise that the sun is overhead at midday on one meridian, and Jamaica sits 7 minutes of solar time west of UTC−5:00’s. The rest is the equation of time, which swings about a quarter of an hour either way across the year.

Jamaica lies inside the tropics, so the sun passes directly overhead at noon twice a year — around May 11 and August 1 in 2026, when a vertical object casts almost no shadow. Nowhere outside the tropics ever sees that. The longest day is 13 hours 12 minutes and the shortest 11 hours 3 minutes, 129 minutes apart.

Jamaica has kept UTC−5:00 since Sunday, October 30, 1983, when it moved from UTC−4:00. Before that its clocks read 1 hour ahead of what they read now.

On UTC−5:00 right now, the same clock as Jamaica: