EST to UTC Converter (Eastern Time to Coordinated Universal Time)

Mid-January 2026: UTC is 5 hours ahead of EST. Mid-July 2026: UTC is 4 hours ahead of EDT.

Eastern Time is UTC-05:00 in winter, when it is called EST, and UTC-04:00 in summer, when it is called EDT. To find UTC from an Eastern time, add 5 hours in winter or 4 hours in summer. A 2:00 p.m. meeting in New York is 19:00 UTC in January and 18:00 UTC in July.

The conversion is popular among people who have to move a local time into a system that works in UTC: a pilot filing a flight plan, a developer scheduling a job, or an organizer setting an international webcast. Mistakes happen most in the spring and autumn weeks, when the offset changes.

How to use this tool

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

Formula

UTC time = EST time − (EST UTC offset) + (UTC 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 EST on March 2, 2026 = 2:00 PM UTC

6:30 PM EDT on August 3, 2026 = 10:30 PM UTC

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.

EST to UTC time table

Each hour in Eastern Time with the matching Coordinated Universal Time time in winter and summer (reference days in January and July).

UTC to EST time table

Each hour in Coordinated Universal Time with the matching Eastern Time time in winter and summer (reference days in January and July).

Hours that work in both places

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

Check the summer column above when one of the places is on daylight saving time.

Why aviation and weather use UTC

Pilots and air traffic controllers use UTC, often called Zulu time, so that a flight crossing several zones keeps a single clock. A departure written as 1400Z is 9:00 a.m. in winter on the US East Coast and 10:00 a.m. in summer.

Weather services such as the National Weather Service publish observations and forecast model runs in UTC, which is why a forecast for 00Z falls in the evening in New York.

Daylight saving time and the offset

The US begins daylight saving time on the second Sunday of March at 2:00 a.m. local time and ends it on the first Sunday of November. In 2026 those dates are March 8 and November 1. The converter looks up the correct offset for the date you enter.

A recurring job fixed to a local Eastern time shifts by an hour in UTC when the clocks change. A job fixed to UTC does not shift, but it appears to move by an hour on New York's clock.