Samoa to change its time zone

New Zealand and Australia are important business partners for Samoa, but the time difference makes it a challenge. Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said: "In doing business with New Zealand and Australia, we're losing out on two working days a week."^[1]

"While it's Friday here, it's Saturday in New Zealand, and when we're at church on Sunday, they're already conducting business in Sydney and Brisbane."^[1]

At the moment, Samoa's capital Apia is 21 hours behind Sydney and 23 hours behind Wellington. After 29 December, Apia will be one hour ahead of Wellington and three hours ahead of Sydney.^[1][2]

It will be the first time in 119 years that Samoa moves across the date line. In 1892 it moved to the east side of the international date line, to help trade with the United States and Europe.^[1][2]

"Our trading partners have dramatically changed since and today we do a lot more business with New Zealand and Australia, China and Pacific Rim countries such as Singapore," the prime minister said.^[1]

Samoa lies in the South Pacific Ocean, about halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii,^[3] and has a population of 179,000 people. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962.^[3]

Update, 26 October 2026: The change happened as planned: Thursday 29 December 2011 was followed by Saturday 31 December, so Friday 30 December 2011 never happened in Samoa, or in Tokelau, which made the same jump.^[2][3] American Samoa, next door, stayed east of the date line, so it is now a whole day behind Samoa. Samoa has not used summer time since 2021 and keeps UTC+13 all year.^[2]