New York Time Now

What this page shows

So you want to know what time it is in New York right now. Maybe you have a call with someone on the US East Coast, a flight to catch, a market open to track, 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 New York 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 New York and keeps itself right on its own, even across the days when the clocks change. Whether New York is on its winter or its summer setting at the time, the clock shows the correct local time.

New York changes its clocks twice a year

Here is the part worth knowing about New York time. New York 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 New York 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 New York is in

New York runs on Eastern Time, the zone of the US East Coast, five hours behind UTC in winter and four hours behind in summer. It is the most populated of the American time zones, shared with cities like Washington, Boston, Atlanta, and Miami.

New York is the city that anchors Eastern Time in most people's minds. With the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq both here, market hours, 9:30 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon Eastern, are quoted in this one time zone all over the world. Between Wall Street and the city's media, a very large slice of American business runs on this clock, which is part of why so many international schedules are pinned to New York.

How to tell if New York is on EST or EDT right now

New York 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 New York 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, New York 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 New York to other cities

The cities that share North America's daylight saving schedule stay a fixed distance from New York 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 New York.

A few quick examples

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

Say it is 12 noon in New York. 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 New York in winter, so 12 noon here is 2 in the morning the next day in Tokyo. There is almost no shared working hour, so calls between New York and Japan usually fall in the early morning or late evening for one side.

A couple of things about New York time

New York sits at about 41 degrees north, so the length of the day swings a fair amount across the year. Around midsummer there are roughly fifteen hours between sunrise and sunset, while around midwinter that drops to a little over nine hours, with the sun setting in the late afternoon.

On the clock-against-sun question, New York is a close match. The city sits almost exactly on the meridian Eastern Standard Time is built on, so in winter the sun is at its highest within a few minutes of 12 noon by the clock. In summer, on EDT, the clock runs an hour ahead of the sun, like the rest of the country, which is the point of the change: more daylight in the evening.

Other places on the same time

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

• Washington DC time now
• Miami 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 New York right now?

The clock near the top of this page is the answer, and it updates every second. Just remember that New York 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 New York time.

Is New York on EST or EDT right now?

Go by the dates. New York 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.

What time zone is New York in?

Eastern Time, five hours behind UTC in winter and four hours behind in summer. It is the same zone as Washington, Boston, Atlanta, and Miami, the most populated of the American time zones.

What is the time difference between New York and London?

London is normally five hours ahead of New York. 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.

How many hours ahead of Los Angeles is New York?

Three hours ahead, all year. Both cities change their clocks on the same dates, so the three hour gap between the East and West Coasts never changes.

What is the IANA name for New York time?

It is America/New_York in the IANA time zone database, the time data your phone and your computer use. It carries both the EST and EDT offsets along with the rule for switching between them, 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