How to Change the Time and Time Zone on Windows 10

If your Windows 10 clock is wrong, first check how far off it is. Off by whole hours almost always means the wrong time zone. Off by a few minutes means the clock has stopped syncing. Wrong again every time the PC starts from cold points to the motherboard’s CMOS battery. The first two are fixed in Settings > Time & Language > Date & time, and the sections below cover each cause, plus commands and managed PCs.

How far off is the clock?

Compare the taskbar clock with a phone or another reliable clock, then find your symptom in this table.

What you see	Likely cause	Where to go
Off by exactly 1, 2, 3 or more hours, minutes are right	Wrong time zone, or daylight saving set wrong	Fix a wrong time zone
Off by a few seconds or minutes, getting worse over days	Clock is not syncing with a time server	Keep the clock in sync
Wrong after every cold start or after unplugging	Weak CMOS battery or wrong firmware clock	When the clock keeps reverting
Toggles and buttons are greyed out	No administrator rights, or a work or school policy	When the clock keeps reverting
You need a time that is not the real local time	Testing, a deadline, or a remote office	Set the time by hand

The quickest way into the settings page is to right-click the clock at the right end of the taskbar and choose the date and time adjustment option, which opens the same Date & time page as Settings.

Fix a wrong time zone

When the minutes are right and only the hour is wrong, leave automatic time alone and change the zone instead. Changing the hour by hand would just be undone at the next sync.

1. Open Start > Settings > Time & Language > Date & time.
2. If Set time zone automatically is on and picked the wrong zone, turn it off.
3. Open the Time zone list and choose your zone. Each zone shows its UTC offset first, so if you know your offset (US Central is UTC-06:00 in winter), you can find it quickly.
4. Check Adjust for daylight saving time automatically. Leave it on if your area changes clocks in spring and fall; turn it off only if your area does not observe daylight saving time and the zone you picked keeps shifting your clock.

The taskbar clock updates as soon as you pick the zone. Microsoft lists the same switches on its time, date and time zone settings page. Automatic zone detection depends on Windows working out where the PC is, so a laptop on a VPN or with location turned off can land in the wrong zone; setting it by hand is the reliable fix in that case. For the Philippines and other single-zone countries, see how to set Philippine time (UTC+8) on Windows 10 for a worked example.

Set the time by hand

A manual time is useful when there is no internet connection, when you are testing how an app behaves on a future date, or when the sync source is blocked. Windows will overwrite a manual time if automatic time is still on, so the order of these steps matters.

1. On the Date & time page, turn off Set time automatically.
2. Select Change in the Set the date and time section.
3. In the Change date and time window, set the date and the time, then select Change.

When you are done testing, turn Set time automatically back on so Windows returns to the real time. If you prefer the older dialog, press Windows key + R, type timedate.cpl and press Enter to open Date and Time in Control Panel; you can also open Control Panel in Windows 10 and go to Clock and Region. In an elevated Command Prompt, the time and date commands set the clock too; as with Settings, the change is undone at the next sync while Set time automatically is on.

Keep the clock in sync

A clock that drifts by minutes is not syncing. Turn Set time automatically on, then use the sync button lower on the same Date & time page (on Windows 10 it sits under a heading about synchronizing your clock and reads Sync now). A note under the button shows when the last successful sync happened.

If the button fails, check the time source from an elevated Command Prompt (search for cmd, right-click it and choose Run as administrator):

• w32tm /query /source shows where the PC gets its time. On a home PC that is not joined to a domain the default server is time.windows.com.
• w32tm /query /status shows the last successful sync and how far off the clock was.
• w32tm /resync asks the Windows Time service to sync right away.

Time sync uses NTP over UDP port 123, so a strict firewall, some VPNs or a hotel network can block it. Try again on another network before changing anything else. Changing the time server is done on the Internet Time tab of the Control Panel Date and Time dialog; it rarely helps unless your network blocks Microsoft’s server. To see which server you are using now, read how to check the NTP server in Windows.

Change the zone with tzutil or PowerShell

Commands help when Settings will not open, when you are fixing a PC over remote support, or when you set up several machines with a script. Both tools change the same setting as the Time zone list.

Task	Command Prompt (tzutil)	PowerShell
Show the current zone	tzutil /g	Get-TimeZone
List every zone ID	tzutil /l	Get-TimeZone -ListAvailable
Set a zone	tzutil /s "Pacific Standard Time"	Set-TimeZone -Id "Pacific Standard Time"
Set a zone with daylight saving off	tzutil /s "Pacific Standard Time_dstoff"	Use tzutil

The ID must match the list exactly, including spaces, and goes in quotation marks. IDs are not the same as the display names in Settings: “Eastern Standard Time” covers New York even in summer. Microsoft documents the switches on its tzutil reference and the Set-TimeZone reference. Running the window as administrator avoids permission errors on most PCs.

When the clock keeps reverting or the settings are greyed out

• Greyed-out Change button: turn off Set time automatically first. If it is still unavailable, you are signed in with a standard account; changing the system time needs an administrator account.
• Work or school PC: organizations often lock the time and time zone through policy and sync the clock from their own servers. If the toggles are greyed out even for an administrator, ask the IT team rather than working around it, because sign-in to company resources depends on the clock matching the domain.
• Windows Time service stopped: press Windows key + R, type services.msc, open Windows Time, set the startup type to Automatic and start it, then sync again.
• Wrong after every cold start: the small coin cell on the motherboard keeps the hardware clock running while the PC is off. When it weakens, the date jumps back to an old default after a full power loss. See how to check CMOS battery status on Windows 10 before you replace it. If the date is already wrong before Windows loads, check the date and time in the PC’s UEFI or BIOS setup screen as well.
• Off by hours after using another operating system: some Linux setups store the hardware clock in UTC while Windows treats it as local time, which can shift the hour after switching. Syncing in Windows fixes it for that session.

A wrong clock is more than cosmetic. Secure websites check certificate dates, and sign-ins, Windows Update and cloud sync can fail when the PC’s time is far off, so fix the clock before chasing those errors.

Clock display options

Microsoft’s combined date and time page also lists a Show time and date in the System tray switch, but that switch belongs to Windows 11; on Windows 10 the taskbar clock is turned on or off from the taskbar settings (Turn system icons on or off). To switch between a 12-hour and a 24-hour clock, the format is set under the region settings; the steps are in how to set 24-hour time on Windows 10. Control Panel’s Date and Time dialog also has an Additional Clocks tab that can show up to two more time zones when you hover over or click the taskbar clock.

Windows 10 after October 2025

Windows 10 reached end of support on October 14, 2025. These settings still work, and home users can keep getting security fixes through October 12, 2027 by enrolling in Extended Security Updates. On a newer PC, the same options live in Windows 11: see how to change the time and time zone on Windows 11 and how to sync time on Windows 11.

Windows 10 clock questions

Why does my time reset after every restart?

A normal restart keeps power on the board, so a reset there is usually software: another operating system rewriting the hardware clock, a stopped Windows Time service, or an app that sets the clock. A reset only after a full shutdown or unplugging points to the CMOS battery.

Can I change the time without administrator rights?

Not the system time: by default only administrators (and the Local Service account) have that right. The time zone is different: standard users can change it by default, so a clock that is off by whole hours can be fixed without an administrator.

Why does automatic time zone pick the wrong zone?

The automatic option depends on the PC’s detected location. A VPN, a travel router or location services turned off can make it guess wrong. Turn Set time zone automatically off and choose the zone yourself.

How do I stop Windows adjusting for daylight saving time?

Turn off Adjust for daylight saving time automatically on the Date & time page, or set the zone with the _dstoff suffix in tzutil. Only do this if your area really does not change its clocks.

Can I use a different time server?

Yes, on the Internet Time tab of the Control Panel Date and Time dialog, using a public NTP server your network allows. On a work PC, leave the time source to IT.

Once the clock matches your phone, leave automatic time on and check the last sync note now and then; a drifting clock is easier to fix early than after sign-ins start failing.