How We Calculate Prayer Times

Every time on prayertim.com is computed from the sun's position at the city's coordinates. This page lists exactly what is used so you can check it or match it with your own authority.

1. The sun's position

For each date we calculate the sun's declination (how far north or south of the equator it is) and the equation of time (the difference between solar noon and clock noon). Together with the city's latitude and longitude, these give the moment of solar noon and the time the sun reaches any chosen angle below or above the horizon.

2. The five prayers

• Dhuhr begins just after solar noon, when the sun has passed its highest point.
• Asr begins when an object's shadow reaches its own length plus the shadow it had at noon (Standard: Shafi'i, Maliki, Hanbali), or twice its length plus the noon shadow (Hanafi).
• Maghrib begins at sunset, defined as the sun's upper edge reaching the horizon with a standard allowance for atmospheric refraction (the sun's centre 0.833° below the horizon). The Tehran method instead uses 4.5°.
• Isha begins when evening twilight ends, defined by an angle of the sun below the horizon or, in some methods, a fixed time after Maghrib.
• Fajr begins at true dawn, defined by an angle of the sun below the horizon before sunrise. Sunrise uses the same 0.833° definition and marks the end of the Fajr time.

3. Calculation methods

Institutions choose slightly different angles for Fajr and Isha. These are the methods available on this site:

Our comparison guide explains why these differ and how large the difference is in practice.

4. Default method for each country

We start each country on the method most commonly used there. You can always change it with the Options box on any timetable.

Muslim World League (142 countries): Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Cote d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Djibouti, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Eswatini and 102 more.

Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) (26 countries): Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Micronesia, Nicaragua, Palau, Panama, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, United States.

Egyptian General Authority of Survey (7 countries): Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Sudan, Syria.

University of Islamic Sciences, Karachi (10 countries): Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.

Umm al-Qura University, Makkah (4 countries): Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Yemen.

Gulf Region (Dubai) (1 country): United Arab Emirates.

Kuwait (1 country): Kuwait.

Qatar (1 country): Qatar.

Singapore / Southeast Asia (3 countries): Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore.

Turkey (Diyanet style) (1 country): Turkey.

Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran (1 country): Iran.

5. Default Asr school

Hanafi Asr is the default in: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. Everywhere else the default is Standard Asr. Both are available on every page.

6. Very high latitudes

In summer at high latitudes the sun may never sink far enough below the horizon for twilight to end, so the Fajr and Isha angles are never reached. When that happens, or when the computed Fajr or Isha would fall unreasonably far from sunrise or sunset, we apply the night-fraction rule: above 48° latitude Fajr and Isha are limited to one seventh of the night from sunrise or sunset, and below that latitude to half of the night. Read more in prayer times at high latitudes.

7. Time zones and daylight saving time

Each city is assigned an IANA time zone. The UTC offset is looked up for every calendar date, so daylight saving changes are applied on the correct day automatically. Times are shown in the city's local time and rounded to the nearest minute.

8. Hijri dates

Hijri dates come from the Umm al-Qura calendar built into your browser. They are calculation-based and can differ by a day from local moon sighting; the Islamic day also begins at Maghrib, whereas the date shown changes at midnight.

9. Qibla

The Qibla is the great-circle initial bearing from the city to the Kaaba (21.4225° N, 39.8262° E), measured clockwise from true north.

10. Limits of accuracy

City coordinates are approximate city-centre points, and we do not adjust for elevation or the local horizon. These effects normally change times by well under a minute, but your mosque's published timetable always takes priority for congregational prayers. If you find a discrepancy, please tell us.