Calculate the UTC offset given a TimeZone string in JavaScript

Question

Using the standard JS library (ECMA5), without using momentjs or external libs, how do you calculate the UTC offset given a TimeZone string such as \"Europe/Rome\"

Answer 1

Youve got to:

• get the current datetime (will give you the datetime in the current timezone of the current device)
• get the current timezone offset
• convert the datetime to the new/required timezone
• get the difference between the current datetime and the converted datetime
• add said difference to the current timezone offset

Eg returning timezone in hours:

function getTimezoneOffset(tz, hereDate) {
    hereDate = new Date(hereDate || Date.now());
    hereDate.setMilliseconds(0); // for nice rounding

    const
    hereOffsetHrs = hereDate.getTimezoneOffset() / 60 * -1,
    thereLocaleStr = hereDate.toLocaleString('en-US', {timeZone: tz}),
    thereDate = new Date(thereLocaleStr),
    diffHrs = (thereDate.getTime() - hereDate.getTime()) / 1000 / 60 / 60,
    thereOffsetHrs = hereOffsetHrs + diffHrs;

    console.log(tz, thereDate, 'UTC'+(thereOffsetHrs < 0 ? '' : '+')+thereOffsetHrs);
    return thereOffsetHrs;
}


getTimezoneOffset('America/New_York', new Date(2016, 0, 1));
getTimezoneOffset('America/New_York', new Date(2016, 6, 1));
getTimezoneOffset('Europe/Paris', new Date(2016, 0, 1));
getTimezoneOffset('Europe/Paris', new Date(2016, 6, 1));
getTimezoneOffset('Australia/Sydney', new Date(2016, 0, 1));
getTimezoneOffset('Australia/Sydney', new Date(2016, 6, 1));
getTimezoneOffset('Australia/Sydney');
getTimezoneOffset('Australia/Adelaide');

Which outputs like

America/New_York 2015-12-30T22:00:00.000Z UTC-5
America/New_York 2016-06-30T01:00:00.000Z UTC-4
Europe/Paris 2015-12-31T04:00:00.000Z UTC+1
Europe/Paris 2016-06-30T07:00:00.000Z UTC+2
Australia/Sydney 2015-12-31T14:00:00.000Z UTC+11
Australia/Sydney 2016-06-30T15:00:00.000Z UTC+10
Australia/Sydney 2019-08-14T03:04:21.000Z UTC+10
Australia/Adelaide 2019-08-14T02:34:21.000Z UTC+9.5