What is the UTC offset of the 'Anywhere on Earth' time zone?

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The UTC offset of the “Anywhere on Earth” time zone is UTC-12. Anywhere on Earth, commonly abbreviated AoE, is a deadline convention rather than a normal inhabited civil time zone. It means a stated date has not ended until that date has passed everywhere on Earth.

The convention is tied to the International Date Line West side of the globe, especially Howland and Baker islands, which are the last places where a calendar date exists. When midnight arrives there, it is noon UTC on the following day. That is why an AoE deadline can remain open for many hours after it has already passed in most countries.

AoE became especially associated with IEEE 802.16 standards-balloting procedures, where global participants needed a deadline that avoided repeated local-time conversions and daylight-saving confusion. A common mistake is to choose UTC+12 because it is also near the International Date Line; UTC+12 is among the first offsets to reach a new date, whereas UTC-12 is the last. The offset is also written UTC−12:00 or IDLW.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Aug. 2026

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