diff --git a/logd/main.cpp b/logd/main.cpp
index 946485b80..18029ebdb 100644
--- a/logd/main.cpp
+++ b/logd/main.cpp
@@ -407,6 +407,11 @@ static int issueReinit() {
 // logging plugins like auditd and restart control. Additional
 // transitory per-client threads are created for each reader.
 int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
+    // logd is written under the assumption that the timezone is UTC.
+    // If TZ is not set, persist.sys.timezone is looked up in some time utility
+    // libc functions, including mktime. It confuses the logd time handling,
+    // so here explicitly set TZ to UTC, which overrides the property.
+    setenv("TZ", "UTC", 1);
     // issue reinit command. KISS argument parsing.
     if ((argc > 1) && argv[1] && !strcmp(argv[1], "--reinit")) {
         return issueReinit();