BRT — Brasilia Standard Time
BRT is Brasilia Standard Time, 3 hours behind UTC. It is a fixed offset: unlike a time zone, it does not change with the season — the zones that use it switch to a different abbreviation instead.
Current time in BRT
04:46
Sunday, 2 August 2026
BRT = UTC-3 · 3 hours behind UTC
Shown for 2 Aug 2026 07:46 UTC. The clock goes live as soon as scripts load.
UTC offset
UTC-3
Type
Standard time
Seasonal counterpart
None
The zones using it do not change their clocks
Meanings
1
Unambiguous
Is BRT in force right now?
A zone only carries this abbreviation for part of the year. This is which of them were on it at 2 Aug 2026 07:46 UTC; the list is re-derived against your own clock when scripts load.
On BRT now
- America/Sao_Paulo — Rio de Janeiro
- America/Bahia — Salvador
- America/Fortaleza — Fortaleza
- America/Recife — Recife
Using a different abbreviation
- Every zone listed here was on BRT.
Convert BRT to other time zones
City clocks reflect whatever their zone is doing; where a city observes daylight saving time, its difference from BRT changes twice a year. Use the time zone converter for a specific date.
Time zones and cities that use BRT
Brasilia Standard Time · UTC-3
America/Sao_Paulo
Brazil · no clock changes
Rio de Janeiro Sao Paulo Belo Horizonte Brasilia Curitiba Porto Alegre
Why BRT is not an identifier
BRT is shorthand, not a standard. There is no registry of time zone abbreviations, no authority that assigns them, and nothing preventing two regions from adopting the same three letters — which is what makes codes like IST and CST unusable without context.
For anything a machine will read — a calendar invitation, a database column, an API response — use the IANA identifier of the zone (America/Sao_Paulo, for example) or an explicit UTC offset alongside the date. The identifier survives a change in the law; BRT and its 3 hours offset do not.
Abbreviations on the same clock
Frequently asked questions
What does BRT stand for?
BRT stands for Brasilia Standard Time. It is 3 hours behind UTC, written UTC-3.
What is BRT in UTC?
BRT is UTC-3. To convert an BRT time to UTC, add 3 hours.
Which time zone should I use instead of BRT?
Use an IANA identifier — America/Sao_Paulo, America/Bahia and America/Fortaleza and 1 more for Brasilia Standard Time — or state the UTC offset with the date. Abbreviations are not identifiers: they are not unique, they are not registered anywhere, and half of them change with the season. Calendar software resolves this automatically when you pick a city rather than typing letters.