Home Broker server time
MT4 and MT5 broker server time
Your chart says 21:40. Your clock says 20:40. Nothing is wrong: MetaTrader draws on the broker's server clock, and the file records no timezone at all. Set the server timezone below and every timestamp in your platform becomes readable.
Find your own server time in ten seconds
This is worth doing once rather than trusting any list, including ours. Open MetaTrader and look at the Market Watch window — the time at the top of it is the server clock, updating live. The difference between that and your own clock is your offset, read off your broker's actual server rather than somebody's note about it.
- Open MetaTrader 4 or 5 and press
Ctrl+Mto show Market Watch. - Read the time at the top of the panel. That is server time.
- Subtract your own clock. The difference is the offset to set above, and in the analyzer.
- Repeat after each daylight saving change. A server on EET moves twice a year; one on a fixed GMT offset never does, and the gap between you and it changes anyway whenyou change.
The conventions, and what each one does to your daily chart
The server timezone is not a cosmetic setting. It decides where the platform draws its day boundary, which decides how many daily candles your week contains, which decides what every daily-timeframe indicator is actually measuring.
| Server timezone | Week opens, server clock | Daily bars a week | Shifts? |
|---|---|---|---|
| EET / EEST — UTC+2 in winter, UTC+3 in summer | 00:00 / 00:00 | 5 | Yes, twice a year |
| UTC / GMT+0 — no daylight saving | 22:00 / 21:00 | 6 | No |
| America/New_York — EST / EDT | 17:00 / 17:00 | 6 | Yes, twice a year |
| Europe/London — GMT / BST | 22:00 / 22:00 | 6 | Yes, twice a year |
| Australia/Sydney — AEST / AEDT | 09:00 / 07:00 | 6 | Yes, twice a year |
Session times on an EET server
Because it is the common case, here are the four sessions expressed on an Eastern European server clock — the numbers your chart is already showing you.
| Session | Server, northern winter | Server, northern summer |
|---|---|---|
| Sydney | 23:00 – 08:00 | 01:00 – 10:00 |
| Tokyo | 02:00 – 11:00 | 03:00 – 12:00 |
| London | 10:00 – 19:00 | 10:00 – 19:00 |
| New York | 15:00 – 00:00 | 15:00 – 00:00 |
Per-broker pages
There are none yet, on purpose. A page titled “[broker] server time” is only worth reading if the timezone on it has actually been checked, and a page that guesses is worse than no page — the reader cannot tell which kind they are holding.
The same rule already governs our per-broker export guides: we do not publish a page about a broker whose statement this project has never parsed. Server timezone is held to the same standard, with the check and its date recorded before anything is published. The mechanism is built and the list is empty.
In the meantime the ten-second method above beats any list we could write, because it reads your broker's live server rather than our note about it — and the converter here does the rest.
Questions
Why does my MT4 chart say 21:40 when my clock says 20:40?
Because MetaTrader draws charts on the broker's server clock, not yours, and the file records no timezone at all. Most MT4 and MT5 brokers run their servers on Eastern European Time — UTC+2 in winter, UTC+3 in summer — so a trader in Johannesburg is one hour behind their chart in summer and level with it in winter, while a trader in London is two or three hours behind all year. Nothing is broken. The gap is the server offset, and once you know it every timestamp in your history becomes readable.
How do I find my broker's server time without asking them?
Open MetaTrader and look at the Market Watch window: the time column at the top is the server clock, updating live. Compare it to your own clock and the difference is your offset. It takes about ten seconds and it is authoritative in a way that no third-party list can be, because it is your broker's actual server rather than somebody's note about it. Do the check twice a year, or once after each daylight saving change, because a server on EET moves and a server on a fixed GMT offset does not.
Why do most brokers use EET?
Because its day boundary lands exactly on 17:00 New York, which is where the trading day ends and where swap is charged. A server on that timezone produces five clean daily candles a week. A server on UTC starts its day at midnight UTC, two or three hours after the market has already opened on Sunday evening — so those hours form a stunted sixth candle, and every daily-timeframe indicator on that platform is computed over six bars a week instead of five.
Does the server timezone change my results?
Not your profit and loss, which is recorded in money and does not care what clock it happened on. It changes every conclusion you draw about timing: which session a trade belongs to, which hour of the day you trade best, whether a losing streak clusters around a particular part of the day. Get the offset wrong by three hours and a London-session trader will read as a Tokyo-session trader in their own analysis.
Does the statement file contain the timezone?
No, and this is the root of the whole problem. MT4 and MT5 write local server timestamps with no offset marker and no timezone name, so any tool that parses your statement has to be told. TapeSheet asks rather than guesses, and starts from the Eastern European convention because it is the common case — but the setting sits on the hour and session charts themselves rather than being buried, because it is the one input that changes what those charts mean.
Set it once, and your whole history becomes readable
The analyzer takes the same server timezone and applies it to every trade in your statement — so your hour-of-day and session breakdowns are your real hours, not your broker's. Free, no signup, and the file never leaves your device.
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