How to Figure Out My Broker's GMT Offset?

About this task

The MT5 platform presents its chart using the time of its broker server. The various brokers configure their server time according to their own choice, many of them are in one of the European timezone ranging from GMT+0 to GMT+3, but some brokers opt to have their server in the US Estern timezone, which is GMT-5. These GMT offsets may get further adjusted for the daylight savings from March till October of every year.

The Lucky Trader EA uses the time for trading decisions therefore its time input parameters need to be adjusted by the GMT offset of the broker's server. This article describes how to figure out the GMT offset specific to the MT5 broker account.

Procedure

The Market Watch window's header shows the broker's server time, press Ctrl+M in the MT5 terminal:

This time can be compared to the GMT+0 time to calculate the GMT offset of the broker, as per the next step.
In a web browser search for gmt time keywords to see the current GMT time.
Calculate now the broker GMT offset = 'Market Wacth time' - 'GMT time'.

Results

For an example, assuming the following:

Market Watch time: 18:29
GMT time as per the search result: 15:29

Then the calculated GMT offset is 18:29 - 15:29 = 3:00 hours. In practice - in the limited context of the forex broker servers - it is sufficient to calculate the difference between the hour parts: 18 - 15 = 3 hours.

Note: For broker servers located in Europe the GMT offset is likely to be in the range of 0 and 3, i.e. a zero or positive number. For broker servers located in the US the GMT offset might be in the range of -5 and -6, i.e. a negative number. Keep in mind that these figures may get further adjusted by the daylight savings.

Based on past experience, with no guarantee that the information is correct, these are a few sample broker GMT offsets observed as of July 2015:


MT5 Terminal	Broker	GMT Offset
AxiTrader	AxiCorp Financial Services Pty Ltd	+3
IC Markets	International Capital Markets Pty Ltd	+3
InstaForex	InstaForex Companies Group	+3
FXCM	Forex Capital Markets Inc	+3
ThinkForex	TF Global Markets (Aust) Pty Ltd	+3
RoboForex EU	RoboForex (CY) Ltd	+3
Tallinex	Tallinex Ltd	0
Oanda	OANDA Corporation	-4
MB Trading FX	MB Trading Futures Inc	-4