diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 9dddb6ed..1368b3e0 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -156,6 +156,8 @@
           <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
           <configuration>
             <redirectTestOutputToFile>true</redirectTestOutputToFile>
+            <!-- since DHIS 2 has no time zone support but FHIR has, tests must be executed with a specific time zone -->
+            <argLine>-Duser.timezone=CET</argLine>
             <!-- due to asynchronous jobs stack traces must not be trimmed in non test source -->
             <trimStackTrace>false</trimStackTrace>
           </configuration>