Difference between timestamps with/without time zone in PostgreSQL

Timestamptz vs Timestamp

The timestamptz field in Postgres is basically just the timestamp field where Postgres actually just stores the “normalised” UTC time, even if the timestamp given in the input string has a timezone.

If your input string is: 2018-08-28T12:30:00+05:30 , when this timestamp is stored in the database, it will be stored as 2018-08-28T07:00:00.

The advantage of this over the simple timestamp field is that your input to the database will be timezone independent, and will not be inaccurate when apps from different timezones insert timestamps, or when you move your database server location to a different timezone.

To quote from the docs:

For timestamp with time zone, the internally stored value is always in UTC (Universal Coordinated Time, traditionally known as Greenwich Mean Time, GMT). An input value that has an explicit time zone specified is converted to UTC using the appropriate offset for that time zone. If no time zone is stated in the input string, then it is assumed to be in the time zone indicated by the system’s TimeZone parameter, and is converted to UTC using the offset for the timezone zone. To give a simple analogy, a timestamptz value represents an instant in time, the same instant for anyone viewing it. But a timestamp value just represents a particular orientation of a clock, which will represent different instances of time based on your timezone.

For pretty much any use case, timestamptz is almost always a better choice. This choice is made easier with the fact that both timestamptz and timestamp take up the same 8 bytes of data.

source: https://hasura.io/blog/postgres-date-time-data-types-on-graphql-fd926e86ee87/

I try to explain it more understandably than the referred PostgreSQL documentation.

Neither TIMESTAMP variants store a time zone (or an offset), despite what the names suggest. The difference is in the interpretation of the stored data (and in the intended application), not in the storage format itself:

• TIMESTAMP WITHOUT TIME ZONE stores local date-time (aka. wall calendar date and wall clock time). Its time zone is unspecified as far as PostgreSQL can tell (though your application may knows what it is). Hence, PostgreSQL does no time zone related conversion on input or output. If the value was entered into the database as '2011-07-01 06:30:30', then no mater in what time zone you display it later, it will still say year 2011, month 07, day 01, 06 hours, 30 minutes, and 30 seconds (in some format). Also, any offset or time zone you specify in the input is ignored by PostgreSQL, so '2011-07-01 06:30:30+00' and '2011-07-01 06:30:30+05' are the same as just '2011-07-01 06:30:30'. For Java developers: it's analogous to java.time.LocalDateTime.

• TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE stores a point on the UTC time line. How it looks (how many hours, minutes, etc.) depends on your time zone, but it always refers to the same "physical" instant (like the moment of an actual physical event). The input is internally converted to UTC, and that's how it's stored. For that, the offset of the input must be known, so when the input contains no explicit offset or time zone (like '2011-07-01 06:30:30') it's assumed to be in the current time zone of the PostgreSQL session, otherwise the explicitly specified offset or time zone is used (as in '2011-07-01 06:30:30+05'). The output is displayed converted to the current time zone of the PostgreSQL session. For Java developers: It's analogous to java.time.Instant (with lower resolution though), but with JDBC and JPA 2.2 you are supposed to map it to java.time.OffsetDateTime (or to java.util.Date or java.sql.Timestamp of course).

Some say that both TIMESTAMP variations store UTC date-time. Kind of, but it's confusing to put it that way in my opinion. TIMESTAMP WITHOUT TIME ZONE is stored like a TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE, which rendered with UTC time zone happens to give the same year, month, day, hours, minutes, seconds, and microseconds as they are in the local date-time. But it's not meant to represent the point on the time line that the UTC interpretation says, it's just the way the local date-time fields are encoded. (It's some cluster of dots on the time line, as the real time zone is not UTC; we don't know what it is.)

Here is an example that should help. If you have a timestamp with a timezone, you can convert that timestamp into any other timezone. If you haven't got a base timezone it won't be converted correctly.

SELECT now(),
   now()::timestamp,
   now() AT TIME ZONE 'CST',
   now()::timestamp AT TIME ZONE 'CST'

Output:

-[ RECORD 1 ]---------------------------
now      | 2018-09-15 17:01:36.399357+03
now      | 2018-09-15 17:01:36.399357
timezone | 2018-09-15 08:01:36.399357
timezone | 2018-09-16 02:01:36.399357+03

The differences are covered at the PostgreSQL documentation for date/time types. Yes, the treatment of TIME or TIMESTAMP differs between one WITH TIME ZONE or WITHOUT TIME ZONE. It doesn't affect how the values are stored; it affects how they are interpreted.

The effects of time zones on these data types is covered specifically in the docs. The difference arises from what the system can reasonably know about the value:

• With a time zone as part of the value, the value can be rendered as a local time in the client.

• Without a time zone as part of the value, the obvious default time zone is UTC, so it is rendered for that time zone.

The behaviour differs depending on at least three factors:

• The timezone setting in the client.
• The data type (i.e. WITH TIME ZONE or WITHOUT TIME ZONE) of the value.
• Whether the value is specified with a particular time zone.

Here are examples covering the combinations of those factors:

foo=> SET TIMEZONE TO 'Japan';
SET
foo=> SELECT '2011-01-01 00:00:00'::TIMESTAMP;
      timestamp      
---------------------
 2011-01-01 00:00:00
(1 row)

foo=> SELECT '2011-01-01 00:00:00'::TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE;
      timestamptz       
------------------------
 2011-01-01 00:00:00+09
(1 row)

foo=> SELECT '2011-01-01 00:00:00+03'::TIMESTAMP;
      timestamp      
---------------------
 2011-01-01 00:00:00
(1 row)

foo=> SELECT '2011-01-01 00:00:00+03'::TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE;
      timestamptz       
------------------------
 2011-01-01 06:00:00+09
(1 row)

foo=> SET TIMEZONE TO 'Australia/Melbourne';
SET
foo=> SELECT '2011-01-01 00:00:00'::TIMESTAMP;
      timestamp      
---------------------
 2011-01-01 00:00:00
(1 row)

foo=> SELECT '2011-01-01 00:00:00'::TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE;
      timestamptz       
------------------------
 2011-01-01 00:00:00+11
(1 row)

foo=> SELECT '2011-01-01 00:00:00+03'::TIMESTAMP;
      timestamp      
---------------------
 2011-01-01 00:00:00
(1 row)

foo=> SELECT '2011-01-01 00:00:00+03'::TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE;
      timestamptz       
------------------------
 2011-01-01 08:00:00+11
(1 row)