Miami Time Now

What this page shows

So you want to know what time it is in Miami right now. Maybe you have a call with someone in Florida, a flight to catch, a match kicking off on local time, or someone to reach before their evening is over. That is what the clock at the top of this page is for. It shows the current time in Miami 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 Miami and keeps itself right on its own, even across the days when the clocks change. Whether Miami is on its winter or its summer setting at the time, the clock shows the correct local time.

Miami changes its clocks twice a year

Here is the part worth knowing about Miami time. Miami does not stay on the same clock all year. It uses Eastern Standard Time, EST, through the winter, and moves an hour ahead to Eastern Daylight Time, EDT, for the summer.

So there are two settings behind Miami time:

• EST, Eastern Standard Time. Five hours behind UTC, written UTC minus 5. The winter setting, from early November to early March.
• EDT, Eastern Daylight Time. Four hours behind UTC, written UTC minus 4. The summer setting, from early March to early November.

The clock above follows whichever one is in force, so you do not have to track it yourself. The section further down spells out the dates if you ever need to work it out for a particular day.

What time zone Miami is in

Miami runs on Eastern Time, the zone of the US East Coast, five hours behind UTC in winter and four hours behind in summer. It keeps the same clock as New York, Washington, and Atlanta, the most populated of the American time zones.

What makes Miami stand out is its position at the far southern end of that zone, near the tropics. It shares its clock with the cities of the Northeast, but its experience of daylight is quite different, far more even through the year, as the facts below explain. Miami is also a major gateway between the United States and Latin America and the Caribbean, many parts of which sit on the same Eastern offset or close to it, which makes the city a natural meeting point on the clock as well as the map.

How to tell if Miami is on EST or EDT right now

Miami changes its clocks on two Sundays a year, and the dates are set in US law, the Uniform Time Act, last amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. They are different from the European dates, landing a little wider on each side:

• Spring forward. On the second Sunday of March, at 2 in the morning, the clocks jump ahead one hour. EST becomes EDT, and Miami goes from UTC minus 5 to UTC minus 4.
• Fall back. On the first Sunday of November, at 2 in the morning, the clocks drop back one hour. EDT becomes EST again, at UTC minus 5.

So the rule is short. From the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November, Miami is on EDT. The rest of the year, early November round to early March, it is on EST. Place today between those two Sundays and you have your answer.

Time difference from Miami to other cities

The cities that share North America's daylight saving schedule stay a fixed distance from Miami all year, while the ones on different schedules can shift by an hour at the edges of the seasons. Here is the quick reference, assuming it is 12 noon in Miami.

A few quick examples

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

Say it is 12 noon in Miami. Los Angeles is three hours behind all year, so 9 in the morning out west. In the winter, London is five hours ahead, making it 5 in the afternoon there, while Mumbai is ten and a half hours ahead at 10:30 at night.

Now a call to London, which has one small catch. The US and the UK both change their clocks, but not on the same dates, so for a couple of short windows in spring and autumn the usual five hour gap briefly narrows to four. For anything that has to land exactly in those weeks, trust the live clock over the rule of thumb.

And one for Asia, which is the real challenge. Tokyo is fourteen hours ahead of Miami in winter, so 12 noon here is 2 in the morning the next day in Tokyo. There is almost no shared working hour, so those calls usually fall in the early morning or late evening for one side.

A couple of things about Miami time

Miami sits far to the south, at about 26 degrees north, close to the tropics, which gives it a remarkably even day length through the year. Around midsummer there are roughly thirteen and three quarter hours between sunrise and sunset, and around midwinter still about ten and a half. Compare that with New York, on the very same clock, which swings from about nine hours to fifteen. It is the same Eastern Time, a much steadier sun.

On the clock-against-sun question, Miami sits a fair way west of the meridian Eastern Standard Time is built on, so the sun reaches its highest about twenty minutes after 12 noon by the clock in winter, and an hour later in summer on EDT. The gentle, near-even daylight comes from the low latitude rather than the clock.

Other places on the same time

Plenty of cities keep the same time as Miami on Eastern Time. Here are a few to jump to:

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

And if it is the time zone itself you are reading up on rather than the city, the standard side is at EST Time Now, the summer side at EDT Time Now, and the global reference both are measured from at UTC Time Now.

Questions people ask

What time is it in Miami right now?

The clock near the top of this page is the answer, and it updates every second. Just remember that Miami changes its clocks, so it shows EST through the winter and EDT through the summer, switching over on its own. Either way, the time shown is the correct Miami time.

Is Miami on EST or EDT right now?

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

Is Miami the same time as New York?

Yes, exactly. Both are on Eastern Time, so Miami and New York always read the same clock, down to the second, summer and winter alike, even though Miami sits much further south.

What time zone is Miami in?

Eastern Time, five hours behind UTC in winter and four hours behind in summer. It is the same zone as New York, Washington, and Atlanta.

What is the time difference between Miami and London?

London is normally five hours ahead of Miami. The two change their clocks on slightly different dates, so for a couple of short windows in spring and autumn the gap narrows to four hours.

What is the IANA name for Miami time?

It is America/New_York in the IANA time zone database, the time data your phone and your computer use. The whole US Eastern zone runs on this identifier, and it is what drives the live clock on this page.

References

1. Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Time Zone Database (the tz database), home of the America/New_York identifier. https://www.iana.org/time-zones
2. U.S. Code, Title 15, Section 260a: the Uniform Time Act of 1966, as amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which sets the daylight saving 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, Standard Time Zone Boundaries under 49 CFR Part 71. 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