Power BI advanced date filter is in UTC, but my data is in Central Time – how to handle?

[Zhinee]

I’m building a Power BI report and I want to use Advanced filtering on a datetime column.

Let's say I want to filter for rows  after 8/1/2025 2:00 PM.
The issue is that this filter would run in UTC, so if user put 8/1/2025 2:00 PM,  it would look for data after 8/1/2025 7:00 PM
My data is stored in Central Time (CT).

How can I handle this time zone difference?

[v-aatheeque]

Hi @Zhinee ,

Just checking back on the solution already shared earlier about handling the UTC conversion in your Power BI datetime filter. Were you able to implement the suggested approach to align the filter with your Central Time data, or are you still seeing mismatches?

Happy to help further if you’re still facing challenges.

[Zhinee]

Hello,

I am still facing some issues.
So in my visual, the date is in central time zone.
It works when I use Advanced Filtering

But if I use the Relative Time type, It would not work because it uses UTC time zone
lets say it's 8:55AM now, and I want to filter by past 2 hours, I am expecting 6:55AM to 8:55AM but it would have 11:55AM to 1:55PM which I believe is in UTC, so this would not work 

[v-aatheeque]

Hi @Zhinee ,

The Relative Time filter in Power BI is based on UTC, not your local time zone, which causes exactly the kind of mismatch you're seeing. So when you expect a filter from 6:55 AM to 8:55 AM Central Time, Power BI interprets it as 11:55 AM to 1:55 PM UTC, which throws off your visuals. 

• Power BI Service runs on UTC internally.
• Relative Time Filter will always evaluates against UTC, regardless of your dataset’s timezone.
• Use Advanced Filtering Instead ,as You're already doing this and it works because you can manually set the exact local time range.

That’s why your "past 2 hours" is giving UTC-based results instead of Central Time.

Reference : https://www.thepoweruser.com/2019/10/21/handling-different-time-zones-in-power-bi-power-query/

https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Desktop/Relative-Date-filter-is-set-to-UTC-need-to-change-...

Hope this helps !!

Thank You.

[Zhinee]

Thank you for the explanation.
I understand that the Relative Date filter uses the UTC time zone.
My question is whether there is a way to make both the Relative Time Filter and the Advanced Time Filter work together.

[v-aatheeque · Accepted solution]

Hi @Zhinee 

 In Power BI, Relative time filters (like last 2 hours, last 1 day, etc.) and Advanced filters (with custom date/time ranges) unfortunately don’t work together on the same field within a single visual filter pane ,they override each other.

When both are applied to the same field, Power BI prioritizes one and discards the other, leading to unexpected results or filter conflicts.

This limitation is confirmed in Microsoft’s official documentation, which states that Advanced Filters will only respect anchor time...

If you need both types of filtering:

• Use separate visuals such as Apply Relative Time Filter to one visual and Advanced Filter to another.
• Use bookmarks or page-level filters to toggle between filter modes.

  Hope this helps !!
  Thank You.

[GilbertQ]

Hi @Zhinee 

I think what @Shahid12523 Is trying to say that you need to create a calculated column which has got your daytime in your time zone. Then when you filter using your new column which is in your date time zone it will then filter correctly based on the users input.

[Zhinee]

I think this would work for the Relative time type,

but not for Advanced filtering

[Shahid12523]

Power BI filter pane uses UTC, but your data is in Central Time.

Fix:

Convert your datetime column to UTC in Power Query (or SQL), or

Add a calculated column shifted to UTC (CT +5/6 hours).

Then use that UTC column for filtering.

[Zhinee]

It would not work
For example, user would put in their time like 1pm,
But filter would treat it likes 6pm since it's in UTC time 

[Shahid12523]

Filter pane always uses UTC → can’t change.

Fix options:

Shift your datetime column to CT before filtering.

Or use a CT slicer + measure instead of filter pane.

[MasonMA]

Hello @Zhinee 

Would it work with a calculated column to convert your datetime column from CT to UTC as in below picture? 

Then apply your filter on 'DateTime_UTC'

[Zhinee]

I was thinking of handling it this way: show users the Central Time column, but apply the filter on the UTC column. ( We don't want to show the UTC column to user)

The issue is that when users enter a time (since they’re in Central Time, they’d enter their time in central time lets say 1 PM central time), but in the filter, it would interpret that as 1 PM UTC.

That means it won’t match their actual Central Time input, so I don’t think this approach would work?

[MasonMA]

I was thinking only to expose UTC column to filters. 

To use it, you would need to keep DateTime_CT for visuals only and use DateTime_UTC for all filtering (including Advanced Filter).

This way users never directly interact with CT in filters.

[Zhinee]

Yes — let’s say we keep DateTime_CT for visuals only, and use DateTime_UTC for filtering.

The problem is that when a user enters a time in the filter (for example, 1 PM), they’ll assume it’s Central Time. But the filter will actually interpret it as 1 PM UTC, which means the filter won’t work as they expect.

For example, if a user sets the filter to show records after 8/1 at 1 PM (thinking it’s Central Time), the filter would actually return records after 8/1 at 6 PM (because it’s treating the input as UTC).