CST to EST Converter (Central Time to Eastern Time)

EST is 1 hour ahead of CST.

Central Time is the clock of Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Minneapolis, Kansas City, New Orleans and most of Tennessee. Eastern Time starts one time zone to the east, in places such as Detroit, Atlanta, Pittsburgh and New York City. The gap is a single hour, and because both zones switch to daylight saving time on the same Sunday, it is one hour in winter and in summer.

That small gap is easy to forget, and most mix-ups happen at the edges of the day. An email deadline of 5:00 p.m. Central is 6:00 p.m. in New York, and a call that starts at 8:00 a.m. in Chicago has been underway for an hour in Atlanta.

How to use this tool

1. Pick a date and time in CST. The date matters when daylight saving time is in force.
2. Read the matching time in EST, with both UTC offsets.
3. Use "Use current time" for now, or the tables below for a quick look.

Formula

EST time = CST time − (CST UTC offset) + (EST UTC offset)

The converter looks up both UTC offsets for the actual instant in the saved IANA time zone rules, so daylight saving changes are included automatically.

Example

Worked with the saved rules:

9:00 AM CST on March 2, 2026 = 10:00 AM EST

6:30 PM CDT on August 3, 2026 = 7:30 PM EDT

Time difference through the year

The difference depends on the date when either place moves its clocks. These are the offsets on two reference days, from the saved IANA rules:

Clock changes in 2026

Between these dates the difference shifts by the size of the change.

CST to EST time table

Each hour in Central Time with the matching Eastern Time time.

EST to CST time table

Each hour in Eastern Time with the matching Central Time time.

Hours that work in both places

Hours (on the January reference day) that fall between 8:00 AM and 8:00 PM in both CST and EST:

Where the Central-Eastern line runs

The border between the two zones cuts through several states. Florida is mostly Eastern, but the western panhandle, beyond the Apalachicola River, is on Central Time. Tennessee is split between the zones, with Nashville in Central and Knoxville and Chattanooga in Eastern. Kentucky and Indiana also have counties on each side.

If you are converting for a particular town near one of these borders, confirm which zone it belongs to before using a result. Official boundary descriptions are collected in Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

Everyday uses for a one-hour shift

Television listings often print times as "8/7c", meaning 8 p.m. Eastern and 7 p.m. Central. Sports kickoffs are normally announced in Eastern Time, so a 1:00 p.m. game on the East Coast starts at noon in Chicago.

For work, the shift shortens the shared day only slightly. Most staff in the two zones still overlap for the whole workday, so a single hour is usually settled by naming the zone in the invitation.