Samoa skipped December 30 in 2011 when it moved west of the International Date Line.
At the end of December 29, 2011, Samoa advanced its clocks by 24 hours, changing from UTC−10 to UTC+14. Midnight was followed not by December 30, but by Saturday, December 31. The change effectively moved the International Date Line to the east of Samoa.
Samoa made the switch to align its calendar more closely with major trading partners, including New Zealand, Australia and China. Before the change, Samoa was nearly a full day behind those markets, which complicated business, banking and communication. The new position also better connected Samoa with many Samoans living in New Zealand.
The event is sometimes confused with a daylight-saving adjustment, but it was a permanent time-zone and date-line change. Samoa’s neighboring territory, American Samoa, remained on the opposite side of the date line, making the two Samoas briefly among the world’s closest places geographically but farthest apart by calendar date. Employees who would have worked on the nonexistent December 30 were paid for the lost day.