Washington DC Time Now

What this page shows

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

Washington DC changes its clocks twice a year

Here is the part worth knowing about Washington time. The city 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 Washington 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 Washington DC is in

Washington DC 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, Boston, Atlanta, and Miami, the most populated of the American time zones.

As the seat of the federal government, Washington puts the US Congress, the White House, and the federal courts all on Eastern Time, which is part of why the zone carries so much weight in American life. There is a fitting detail close by, too. NIST, the national institute that keeps the official time of the United States, has its main campus just outside the city, in Gaithersburg, Maryland. So the country's official clock is maintained, in part, a short drive from the capital.

How to tell if Washington DC is on EST or EDT right now

Washington 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 the city 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, Washington 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 Washington DC to other cities

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

A few quick examples

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

Say it is 12 noon in Washington. 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 Washington 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 Washington DC time

Washington sits at about 39 degrees north, so the length of the day swings a fair amount across the year. Around midsummer there are nearly 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, Washington is a close match. The city sits only a little west of the meridian Eastern Standard Time is built on, so in winter the sun is at its highest within about ten 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 Washington on Eastern Time. Here are a few to jump to:

• New York 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 Washington DC right now?

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

Is Washington DC on EST or EDT right now?

Go by the dates. Washington 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 Washington DC the same time as New York?

Yes, exactly. Both are on Eastern Time, so Washington and New York always read the same clock, down to the second, summer and winter alike.

What time zone is Washington DC in?

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

What is the time difference between Washington DC and London?

London is normally five hours ahead of Washington. 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 Washington DC 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, with its main campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland. https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division