Kota Kinabalu Prayer Times

Prayer Times in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Kota Kinabaluprayer times are calculated based on the city's precise geographic coordinates (5.9749°N, 116.0724°E) using the JAKIM calculation method — the standard followed by most mosques in Malaysia. 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 Kota Kinabalu'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 Kota Kinabalu prayer time calendar for the full month is shown below — so you can plan ahead without checking daily.

How Kota Kinabalu's prayer times are worked out

Kota Kinabalu sits 8,344 km (5,185 miles) from the Kaaba in Mecca, so the Qibla from here is 291° from true north — you face west to pray. Fajr and Isha depend on how far the sun drops below the horizon, and Malaysia follows the JAKIM method set by JAKIM, Malaysia's federal Islamic authority: Fajr begins when the sun is 20° below the horizon, and Isha when it reaches 18°. 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 Kota Kinabalu. Measured with the JAKIM method, the longest daily fast here — from Fajr to Maghrib — runs about 13h 54m around June, while the shortest is roughly 13h 10m in December: a swing of 0h 44m across the year. That spread is set by Kota Kinabalu's latitude (5.97°N); cities nearer the equator barely vary, while far-northern ones swing by many hours.

One local quirk worth knowing: Dhuhr in Kota Kinabalu does not fall at 12:00. Because the city sits well west within its Asia/Kuching time zone, the sun peaks about 24 minutes after clock noon, and Dhuhr follows the sun rather than the clock — today it is at 12:23 PM. The nearest cities we also publish times for are Putatan, Donggongon, Keningau — close enough that their times differ from Kota Kinabalu's by only a few minutes.