Are you having problems with the “Pacific Time (PST or PDT)” time zone setting in your Google Ads account? Have you tried to change it to another time zone and you couldn’t? This quick tutorial may have the answers you need.
Pacific Time (PST or PDT) explained
This is the US time zone where Google’s headquarters are located (in Mountain View, California). This time zone will be set for your account if you didn’t select one when you set it up for the first time.
When you create a new Google Ads account, you can choose the time zone that is going to be used for reporting, statistics, and billing. If you don’t select a time zone, your account will use Pacific Time for reporting and the average daily budget cycle will be based on that time zone.
The dates and times listed in the account may refer to PST (Pacific Standard Time) or PDT (Pacific Daylight Time), depending on the time of the year. PST and PDT have a one-hour difference.
Pacific Time Zone is used in North America and is mostly referred to as “Pacific Time” or simply “PT”. It is also known as “North American Pacific Standard Time” or simply “NAPST”.
Note that this time zone is called Pacific Standard Time (PST) only in the winter (when the standard time is used), and it is called Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) in the summer, when daylight saving time is used.
These are the US states where PST is used:
- California
- Idaho
- Nevada
- Oregon
- Washington
These are the Canadian provinces where PST is used:
- British Columbia
- Yukon
The Mexican state of Baja California Norte also uses PST.
Eligibility to change the account’s time zone
By default, you cannot change the time zone of a serving Google Ads account. The time zone can be set only when the account is being created. However, for manager accounts (MCCs), you can change the time zone only once during the lifetime of the account, and only to a later time zone (eastward).
If your Google Ads account meets the above eligibility conditions and you want to change its time zone, you can contact Google using the link below. Keep in mind that requests to change time zones will only be accepted if they come from the admin of a manager account.
If your account does not meet the criteria mentioned above and if you really have to change your time zone, you will have to create a new Google Ads account.
You can export a backup file with all your current data (campaigns, ad groups, keywords, etc.) and then import it into your new account.