EDT Time Now

What this page shows

So you want to know what time it is on the US East Coast right now. Maybe you have a call with someone in New York, a flight to catch, the markets to keep an eye on, or someone to reach before they head to bed. That is what the clock at the top of this page is for. It shows the current time in the US Eastern zone and ticks forward every second, so there is nothing for you to work out by hand.

Wherever in the world you are reading this from, the clock tracks the Eastern zone and keeps itself right on its own, even across the days when the clocks change. Whether the zone is on EDT or EST at the time, the clock shows the correct East Coast time.

EDT is the summer half of Eastern Time

Here is the thing worth getting straight up front. EDT is not a year-round zone. It is the summer half of Eastern Time. The US Eastern zone runs on EDT, Eastern Daylight Time, through the warmer months, and on EST, Eastern Standard Time, through the colder ones.

So there are two settings behind the word Eastern, and EDT is one of them:

• EDT, Eastern Daylight Time. Four hours behind UTC. The summer setting, and the one this page is named for.
• EST, Eastern Standard Time. Five hours behind UTC, one hour behind EDT. The winter setting.

What that means in practice is that for roughly four months of the year, from November to March, the Eastern zone is not on EDT at all. It is on EST. The clock above still shows the right Eastern time through those months, it is simply EST that it is showing then. For the standard-time side on its own page, here is EST Time Now.

What EDT actually is

EDT stands for Eastern Daylight Time. It is the daylight saving version of US Eastern Time, used down the east coast of North America through the summer. It sits four hours behind Coordinated Universal Time, written as UTC minus 4.

Daylight saving works by pushing the clocks one hour ahead of standard time for part of the year. So when the Eastern zone springs forward in March, EST at five hours behind UTC becomes EDT at four hours behind, and the evenings pick up an extra hour of daylight. Come autumn it falls back to EST again.

The Eastern zone is the busiest one in the country, home to close to half of the US population. When it is on EDT through the summer, that takes in cities like New York, Washington DC, Boston, Atlanta, and Miami, along with much of eastern Canada.

When the zone is on EDT and when it is on EST

Whether the Eastern zone is on EDT or EST comes down to the date, and those dates are set in US law, the Uniform Time Act, which was last adjusted by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The change lands on two Sundays:

• Spring forward. On the second Sunday of March, at 2 in the morning, the clocks jump ahead one hour. EST becomes EDT, and the zone goes from five hours behind UTC to four. This is when EDT begins.
• Fall back. On the first Sunday of November, at 2 in the morning, the clocks drop back one hour. EDT ends and EST returns, five hours behind UTC.

So the rule is short. EDT is in effect from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November. Outside that window, from November round to March, the zone is on EST instead. Find where today sits between those two Sundays and you will know which one is running.

Converting EDT to other time zones

Lining Eastern Time up with another zone is easier than it looks, because the United States moves all of its mainland clocks on the very same two Sundays. That means the gap between Eastern and the other US zones never changes through the year. Eastern is always one hour ahead of Central, two hours ahead of Mountain, and three hours ahead of Pacific, summer and winter alike.

The one number that does move is the gap to UTC and to places that keep their own schedule, since Eastern itself slides by an hour between EDT and EST. Here is the quick reference. The right column assumes it is 12 noon on the East Coast.

A few quick examples

Let us run a few, so you can see how this works in practice.

Say it is 12 noon in New York during the summer, when the Eastern zone is on EDT. Central is one hour behind, so it is 11 in the morning in Chicago. Mountain is two hours behind, so 10 in the morning in Denver. Pacific is three hours behind, which puts Los Angeles at 9 in the morning.

Now say you want to call London. Through the summer London is on its own daylight time, and Eastern stays normally five hours behind it, so 9 in the morning in New York is 2 in the afternoon in London.

One more, on the offset to UTC. At 12 noon on EDT it is 4 in the afternoon UTC, because EDT is four hours behind. That same noon in the winter, when the zone is back on EST, would be 5 in the afternoon UTC, since EST is five hours behind. The clock reading is the same, the UTC offset moves by an hour, and daylight saving is the only reason.

Where Eastern Daylight Time is used

EDT is used wherever the US Eastern zone is, through the months daylight saving is active. That runs down the east coast and well inland, taking in New York, Washington DC, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, Charlotte, and Detroit. The boundaries of the zone are set by the US Department of Transportation, so the line does not always follow a clean state border, and Indiana is the usual example, with most of its counties on Eastern and a handful on Central.

North of the border, much of eastern Canada keeps the same time and switches to daylight saving on the same dates, including Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal.

Worth noting that not everywhere on the Eastern offset switches to EDT. A few places further south, like Panama, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands, sit at five hours behind UTC and never move their clocks, so they stay on standard time the whole year and do not observe EDT at all.

Cities on Eastern Time

If you want the live clock for one particular city on Eastern Time rather than the zone as a whole, here are a few to jump to:

• New York time now
• Washington DC time now
• Miami time now
• Toronto time now

For the winter, standard-time side of this zone, see EST Time Now, and for the picture across every US zone at once, there is USA Time Now.

Questions people ask

What time is it in EDT right now?

The clock near the top of this page is the answer, and it updates every second. Keep in mind that EDT is the summer setting of Eastern Time. Through the winter months the zone is on EST instead, and the clock shows that. Either way, the time shown is the correct local time on the US East Coast.

Is the Eastern zone on EDT or EST right now?

Go by the dates. EDT runs from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November. The rest of the year, from November round to March, the zone is on EST. Find where today falls between those two Sundays and you will know.

What is the difference between EDT and EST?

EST is the standard setting at five hours behind UTC. EDT is the daylight saving setting at four hours behind UTC, one hour ahead of EST. The zone springs forward to EDT in March and falls back to EST in November. The plain term Eastern Time, or ET, just means whichever one is active.

How many hours behind UTC is EDT?

Four hours behind, written UTC minus 4. That is the summer offset. In winter the zone is on EST, which is five hours behind UTC.

When does EDT start and end?

It starts on the second Sunday of March, when the clocks spring forward, and it ends on the first Sunday of November, when they fall back to EST. Those dates are fixed in US law.

What is EDT in Pacific and Central time?

Eastern is always three hours ahead of Pacific and one hour ahead of Central, because every mainland US zone changes for daylight saving on the same dates. So 12 noon Eastern is 9 in the morning Pacific and 11 in the morning Central.

What is the IANA name for US Eastern Time?

It is America/New_York. That is the entry in the IANA time zone database, the same time data your phone and your computer use, and it carries the EST and EDT offsets along with the rule for switching between them. It is also what drives the live clock on this page.

References

1. Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Time Zone Database (the tz database), source of the America/New_York identifier and its daylight saving rules. https://www.iana.org/time-zones
2. U.S. Code, Title 15, Section 260a: Advancement of time or changeover dates. The Uniform Time Act of 1966, as amended by Section 110 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Pub. L. 109-58), which sets the second Sunday of March and first Sunday of November dates. Office of the Law Revision Counsel. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title15-section260a
3. U.S. Department of Transportation. Uniform Time, and the official listing of the nation's time zones under 49 CFR Part 71, Standard Time Zone Boundaries. https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/time-act
4. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Time and Frequency Division, the source of official time for the United States. https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division