İstanbul Prayer Times

Prayer Times in İstanbul, Turkey

İstanbulprayer times are calculated based on the city's precise geographic coordinates (41.0082°N, 28.9784°E) using the Diyanet calculation method — the standard followed by most mosques in Turkey. Times shown are for today's date and update automatically at midnight.

The five daily prayers — Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, and Isha — are calculated from the sun's position relative to İstanbul's latitude and longitude. As the sun's declination changes throughout the year, prayer times shift by several minutes each day. This is why a İstanbul prayer time calendar for the full month is shown below — so you can plan ahead without checking daily.

How İstanbul's prayer times are worked out

İstanbul sits 2,405 km (1,494 miles) from the Kaaba in Mecca, so the Qibla from here is 152° from true north — you face southeast to pray. Fajr and Isha depend on how far the sun drops below the horizon, and Turkey follows the Diyanet method set by Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, Türkiye's state religious authority: Fajr begins when the sun is 18° below the horizon, and Isha when it reaches 17°. A city that used ISNA's 15° instead would get a noticeably different Fajr — which is why the method, not just the coordinates, decides the answer.

Day length is what really moves the timetable in İstanbul. Measured with the Diyanet method, the longest daily fast here — from Fajr to Maghrib — runs about 17h 16m around June, while the shortest is roughly 10h 53m in December: a swing of 6h 23m across the year. That spread is set by İstanbul's latitude (41.01°N); cities nearer the equator barely vary, while far-northern ones swing by many hours.

One local quirk worth knowing: Dhuhr in İstanbul does not fall at 12:00. Because the city sits well west within its Europe/Istanbul time zone, the sun peaks about 73 minutes after clock noon, and Dhuhr follows the sun rather than the clock — today it is at 1:11 PM. The nearest cities we also publish times for are Eminönü, Üsküdar, Şişli — close enough that their times differ from İstanbul's by only a few minutes.