2026 Windows Time Zone Changes for British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba
13 Oct 2026
Three Canadian provinces - British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba - stopped observing daylight saving time in 2026. They adjusted clocks ahead of standard time for the last time on March 8, 2026; clocks won't be set back on November 1. To end the DST transitions, Microsoft added new time zones for each province, so sysadmins and users living there should change the time zone on their Windows devices after installing the available updates. Windows should release the update on October 13 (update: it was released on October 14).
British Columbia will stay on the permanent UTC-7 time zone, which will be officially called PCT (Pacific Time). The IANA time zone ID is America/Vancouver. Instead of Pacific Time (US & Canada), you should set the (UTC-07:00) Pacific Time (British Columbia) time zone in Windows settings. The registry ID is British Columbia Standard Time.
Alberta and the Northwest Territories will stay on the permanent UTC-6 time zone, which will be officially called Alberta time (ABT) or Northwest Territories Time. This will align these provinces with Saskatchewan that uses the same UTC offset year-round. The IANA time zone ID is America/Edmonton. Instead of Mountain time (US & Canada), you should set the (UTC-06:00) Mountain Time (Alberta) time zone in Windows settings. The registry ID is Alberta Standard Time.
Manitoba will stay on the permanent UTC-5 time zone, which will be officially called Manitoba Standard Time (MBT). The IANA time zone ID is America/Winnipeg. Instead of Central Time (US & Canada), you should set the (UTC-05:00) Manitoba time zone in Windows settings. The registry ID is Manitoba Standard Time.
If the Set time zone automatically setting is enabled in Windows settings, the time zone should be changed automatically based on your location. You can check that it was corrected by selecting Start -> Settings -> Time & language -> Date & time. You also can use the Set-TimeZone cmdlet to automatically change the system time zone on multiple PCs using the registry IDs listed above.
Microsoft also provides temporary workarounds that can be used on legacy, unsupported Windows versions (see the articles linked above):
- For British Columbia on old Windows versions, you can use (UTC-07:00) Yukon (registry ID:
Yukon Standard Time). If even this timezone is unavailable (e.g., on Windows Vista), I would suggest using (GMT-07:00) Arizona (registry ID:US Mountain Standard Time). - For Alberta and the Northwest Territories on old Windows versions, you can use (UTC-06:00) Saskatchewan (registry ID:
Canada Central Standard Time) as a workaround. - For Manitoba on old Windows versions, you can use (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada) (registry ID:
Eastern Standard Time) and disable DST.
The new version of Aba Search and Replace will support the time zones for these provinces. The current version 2.8 can help you to convert common US, European, and Australian time zones to your local time and UTC:
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