Python Pandas - Get the UTC Offset Time

To get the UTC offset time in Pandas, use the timestamp.utcoffset() method. The UTC offset represents the time difference between a timezone and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

What is UTC Offset?

UTC offset shows how many hours a timezone is ahead or behind UTC. For example, EST is UTC-5, while IST is UTC+5:30.

Basic Usage

First, let's create a timestamp and get its UTC offset ?

import pandas as pd

# Creating a timestamp with UTC timezone
timestamp = pd.Timestamp('2021-10-16T15:12:34.261811624', tz='UTC')
print("Timestamp:", timestamp)

# Get the UTC offset time
offset = timestamp.utcoffset()
print("UTC offset:", offset)

Timestamp: 2021-10-16 15:12:34.261811624+00:00
UTC offset: 0:00:00

UTC Offset with Different Timezones

Let's see how UTC offset works with various timezones ?

import pandas as pd

# Different timezone examples
timezones = ['UTC', 'US/Eastern', 'Asia/Kolkata', 'Europe/London']

for tz in timezones:
    timestamp = pd.Timestamp('2021-10-16T15:12:34', tz=tz)
    offset = timestamp.utcoffset()
    print(f"{tz}: {offset}")

UTC: 0:00:00
US/Eastern: -1 days +20:00:00
Asia/Kolkata: 5:30:00
Europe/London: 1:00:00

Converting to Hours

You can convert the offset to hours for easier interpretation ?

import pandas as pd

timestamp = pd.Timestamp('2021-10-16T15:12:34', tz='Asia/Kolkata')
offset = timestamp.utcoffset()

# Convert to hours
offset_hours = offset.total_seconds() / 3600
print(f"UTC offset: {offset}")
print(f"Offset in hours: {offset_hours}")

UTC offset: 5:30:00
Offset in hours: 5.5

Practical Example

Here's how to work with multiple timestamps and their UTC offsets ?

import pandas as pd

# Create timestamps in different timezones
timestamps = [
    pd.Timestamp('2021-10-16T15:12:34', tz='UTC'),
    pd.Timestamp('2021-10-16T15:12:34', tz='US/Pacific'),
    pd.Timestamp('2021-10-16T15:12:34', tz='Asia/Tokyo')
]

for ts in timestamps:
    print(f"Time: {ts}")
    print(f"UTC Offset: {ts.utcoffset()}")
    print("---")

Time: 2021-10-16 15:12:34+00:00
UTC Offset: 0:00:00
---
Time: 2021-10-16 15:12:34-07:00
UTC Offset: -1 days +17:00:00
---
Time: 2021-10-16 15:12:34+09:00
UTC Offset: 9:00:00
---

Conclusion

The utcoffset() method returns the timezone's offset from UTC as a timedelta object. Use total_seconds() / 3600 to convert the offset to hours for easier interpretation.