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Argentina is located at a longitude that would naturally put it in the UTC−04:00 or UTC−05:00 time zone; however, it actually uses the UTC−03:00 time zone. Argentina determines whether to change clocks in observation of daylight saving time on a year-by-year basis, and individual provinces may opt out of the federal decision. At present, Argentina does not change clocks.
The Argentine Hydrographic Service[1] maintains the official national time.
The first official standardization of time in Argentina took place on 31 October 1894, with establishment of UTC−04:00 as the nation’s standard time.[2] From 1920 to 1969, the official time switched biannually between UTC−04:00 as standard time in winter and UTC−03:00 as daylight saving time in summer.[3] From 1974 to 1993, clocks advanced again, such that the official time switched biannually between UTC−03:00 as winter DST and UTC−02:00 as summer double DST.[4] In 1993, the national time was fixed at UTC−03:00, called Argentina Time (ART;[5][6] Spanish: hora oficial argentina, HOA). In 2007 and 2008, biannual switching between UTC–3:00 (winter DST) and UTC–2:00 (summer DDST) resumed; in 2009, this was replaced again with year-round UTC–3:00 (permanent DST).[7]
In the file zone.tab of the IANA time zone database Argentina has the following zones:
