SAST — South Africa Standard Time

South Africa Standard Time (SAST) is two hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time and is used by South Africa, Lesotho, and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). The same UTC+2 offset is shared by neighboring countries including Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi under the name Central Africa Time (CAT). Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, and Pretoria are the major cities operating on SAST.

South Africa is the most industrialized economy on the African continent, and SAST serves as the reference time for the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the largest stock exchange in Africa. The time zone's two-hour offset from UTC places South Africa in a favorable position for business with Europe, as the overlap in working hours with London and other European financial centers is substantial.

South Africa Standard Time does not observe daylight saving time. South Africa used DST during World War II from 1942 to 1944 but has not used it since. As a country in the Southern Hemisphere's temperate zone, South Africa experiences reversed seasons compared to the Northern Hemisphere, with its shortest days occurring in June and longest in December. Despite this, the variation in daylight hours at Johannesburg's latitude is moderate enough that DST has not been considered necessary.