How To Set The PHP Time Zone

In this post we explain how to set the PHP time zone.

You don’t have access to change the server time as it would require root/administrator privilege and we can’t provide you that on a shared hosting service for security reasons.

However, you can change PHP time zone for your account by editing the .htaccess file.

Because we use CloudLinux in our servers a local php,ini file won’t work but instead PHP values in .htaccess will work. So if you own a shared hosting account with us, here is what you need to do to change the PHP time zone.

• Login to your account via SSH or cPanel
• Open the .htaccess file in public_html directory with a text editor or open the file via cPanel >> File Manager (Since .htaccess is a hidden file,  check the box for “Show Hidden Files (dotfiles)” in the pop-widow).
• Add the following line in the beginning or end of the file.

php_value date.timezone ‘Region/Zone’

eg: php_value date.timezone = ‘Europe/London’

• Save the changes and exit.

Here are some of the default time zones:

America/Chicago
America/Buenos_Aires
America/Detroit
America/Mexico_City
America/Sao_Paulo
America/Toronto
America/Vancouver
Europe/Amsterdam
Europe/Athens
Europe/Berlin
Europe/Brussels
Europe/Copenhagen
Europe/Istanbul
Europe/Lisbon
Europe/London

You can see all the supported time zones here: http://php.net/manual/en/timezones.php

If you are a VPS or dedicated server customer, you need to create a php.ini file instead of .htaccess file and add the following directive.

date.timezone = ‘Region/Zone’

eg: date.timezone = ‘Europe/London’

Useful Resources:

• PHP – List of Supported Time Zones
• date_default_timezone_get

We hope you found this article on how to change the PHP time zone useful.

If you have any suggestions or questions please comment below.