Time MCP Server

The Time MCP server is an official reference implementation maintained in the modelcontextprotocol/servers repository. It gives LLMs simple but reliable access to time and timezone utilities, letting an agent answer questions about the current time in any region or convert times between two zones without needing a separate API or web tool.

The server exposes two tools: get_current_time and convert_time. Both work with IANA timezone names (e.g. America/New_York, Europe/Warsaw, Asia/Tokyo) and return structured responses that include the ISO datetime, UTC offset, and DST status. The server automatically detects the host machine's local timezone, and that default can be overridden at startup with the --local-timezone flag.

Because the server has no external dependencies, no authentication, and a tiny surface area, it is a good first MCP server to install when testing a client or building agents that reason about scheduling, deadlines, meeting coordination, or DST behavior.

Tools

Prerequisites

• Python with uv/uvx installed, or pip, or Docker
• No API keys or external accounts required

Install

Recommended (no install step needed, uvx will fetch on demand):

uvx mcp-server-time

Or with pip:

pip install mcp-server-time
python -m mcp_server_time

Or build the Docker image from the repo:

docker build -t mcp/time .

Claude Desktop config

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "time": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-server-time"]
    }
  }
}

To override the auto-detected system timezone, pass --local-timezone:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "time": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-server-time", "--local-timezone=America/New_York"]
    }
  }
}

VS Code config

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "time": {
        "command": "uvx",
        "args": ["mcp-server-time"]
      }
    }
  }
}

• Answer "what time is it right now in Tokyo/Berlin/SF" inside an agent without resorting to web search
• Convert a meeting time from one participant's zone to another's (e.g. 14:00 in Europe/London to America/Los_Angeles)
• Compute scheduling windows that respect DST transitions before drafting calendar invites or emails
• Stamp generated reports, logs, or notes with an accurate timezone-aware "as of" timestamp
• Sanity-check time arithmetic inside multi-step agents that plan deadlines, SLAs, or follow-ups

• "What time is it right now in Asia/Singapore?"
• "Convert 09:30 from America/New_York to Europe/Berlin and tell me the offset."
• "If our standup is at 10:00 in San Francisco, what time is that in London and Sydney?"
• "Is daylight saving time currently in effect in Europe/Warsaw?"
• "Schedule a check-in for 16:00 UTC and tell me what local time that is in Tokyo and Mumbai."

• Official reference server maintained in the MCP servers repo
• Zero configuration: no API keys, no accounts, no external network calls
• Correctly handles IANA zones and DST, with auto-detection of system timezone
• Tiny scope and surface area, easy to install and reason about

• Only two tools; no date arithmetic, business-day, calendar, or recurrence helpers
• Requires Python tooling (uvx/pip) or Docker on the host machine
• Timezone names must be valid IANA strings; common aliases like "EST" may not work

• Fetch MCP server (same modelcontextprotocol/servers repo) for retrieving time from web APIs if you need richer data
• Filesystem / Memory reference servers if you simply want a minimal MCP server to test a client
• Building a thin custom MCP server around a library like pendulum or luxon when you need business-day or recurrence math beyond what Time exposes