EST: Eastern Standard Time
US & Canada Eastern
Sunday, 27th September 2026
What EST actually is
Eastern Standard Time is UTC-5, used from November to March. The rest of the year the same clocks read Eastern Daylight Time (EDT, UTC-4).
Careful: US & Canada Eastern is not on EST at the moment. It is currently EDT (UTC-4) because of daylight saving.
EST means 2 different things
This is the whole reason calendar software uses IANA identifiers instead of abbreviations. All of them, live:
US & Canada Eastern
Eastern Standard Time is UTC-5, used from November to March. The rest of the year the same clocks read Eastern Daylight Time (EDT, UTC-4).
Clocks go back 1 hour on Sunday, 1st November 2026, at 1:59 am local time (1:00 am after the change).
Australian Eastern (AEST/AEDT)
Australians often write "EST" for their own eastern zone. It is UTC+10 or UTC+11, the opposite side of the planet from the American EST.
Clocks go forward 1 hour on Sunday, 4th October 2026, at 1:59 am local time (3:00 am after the change).
Convert EST
Looking for UTC and GMT developer tooling (epoch conversion, ISO 8601, a free time API)? That lives on our sibling site utctime.app.
Other abbreviations
Questions people ask
What time is it in EST right now?
5:22 am (05:22) on Sunday, 27th September 2026, for US & Canada Eastern. Careful: EST means 2 different things. The other meanings and their current times are listed below.
What does EST stand for?
Eastern Standard Time. Eastern Standard Time is UTC-5, used from November to March. The rest of the year the same clocks read Eastern Daylight Time (EDT, UTC-4).
What is the UTC offset of EST?
US & Canada Eastern: UTC-4; Australian Eastern (AEST/AEDT): UTC+10.
Why does EST mean more than one time zone?
Time-zone abbreviations were never standardised: several countries independently picked the same letters. EST is one of the worst offenders, with 2 meanings in current use. This is why calendar software and databases use IANA identifiers like America/New_York instead: they are unique, and they carry the daylight-saving rules with them.
Is EST in use right now?
Not at this moment. US & Canada Eastern is currently on EDT (UTC-4) because of daylight saving. EST comes back when the clocks change: see the date below.