CET to EST Converter (and EST to CET)

About this tool

This page converts Central European Time to US Eastern Time and back. Choose Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Rome, Amsterdam or Warsaw (they all keep the same clock), enter a date and time, and the converter gives the New York time with the correct labels: CET or CEST on the European side, EST or EDT on the American side. It opens at 3:00 PM in Paris today. Below it are a printable chart, the exact weeks in 2026 and 2027 when the gap is 5 hours instead of 6, and the hours a European and a New York office can actually meet.

How to use it

1. Choose a city in Central Europe. The choice changes only the name shown in the result, since the time is identical in all six.
2. Choose the direction and type the date and time on the side you start from. The date matters here more than for most pairs, because of the mismatch weeks.
3. Read the result. The detail line names both zones in full, with UTC offsets, and says whether the gap on that date is 5 or 6 hours.
4. Swap direction to check the reply, or Copy result to paste it into an invitation.

CET and CEST

Central European Time is UTC+01:00. In summer the same countries use Central European Summer Time, UTC+02:00. Strictly, then, "CET" is only correct in winter; a July meeting at "3 PM CET" almost always means 3 PM on a Paris or Berlin clock, which is CEST. London and Lisbon are not on CET: they are one hour behind it all year. New York, for its part, is on EST (UTC-05:00) in winter and EDT (UTC-04:00) in summer.

Why it is 6 hours, except when it is 5

Both sides spring forward and fall back by one hour, so in deep winter (CET against EST) and in high summer (CEST against EDT) the gap is the same 6 hours. The trouble is that they do it on different dates. EU Directive 2000/84/EC sets summer time from 01:00 UTC on the last Sunday of March to 01:00 UTC on the last Sunday of October, the same instant in every member state. The US rule in 15 U.S.C. 260a starts daylight time on the second Sunday of March and ends it on the first Sunday of November, at 2:00 a.m. local time. Between those dates New York has already moved and Europe has not, and the gap is 5 hours.

Computed from the time zone database, the 5-hour periods are Sun Mar 8, 2026 to Sun Mar 29, 2026 (about three weeks) and Sun Oct 25, 2026 to Sun Nov 1, 2026 (just over a week) in 2026; and Sun Mar 14, 2027 to Sun Mar 28, 2027 (about two weeks) and Sun Oct 31, 2027 to Sun Nov 7, 2027 in 2027. The spring stretch is always the longer one. Any recurring transatlantic meeting fixed in one zone moves by an hour for the other side during those weeks, which is the most common cause of people turning up an hour early or late. The table below the chart lists the exact switch moments on both clocks.

Worked example: 3 PM in Paris

With the default 3:00 PM in Paris, a winter date gives 3:00 PM CET = 9:00 AM EST, with offsets UTC+01:00 and UTC-05:00 and the note that New York is 6 hours behind Paris. A July date gives 3:00 PM CEST = 9:00 AM EDT, still 6 hours. Now pick Monday, March 16, 2026, inside the spring mismatch: the result is 3:00 PM CET = 10:00 AM EDT, only 5 hours apart.

Meeting across the Atlantic

The overlap is thin. With a 9-to-5 day on both sides, Europe and New York share just 2 hours for most of the year: 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM in Paris, 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM in New York. During the mismatch weeks it widens to 3 hours, 9:00 AM to noon in New York. Teams that meet every week usually settle on 9:00 or 10:00 AM Eastern. Noon in Berlin is 6:00 AM in New York, so a European lunchtime call is out of reach for the American side.

Common mistakes

• Writing CET for a summer time. From late March to late October it is CEST, one hour later against UTC.
• Assuming a fixed 6-hour gap in a spreadsheet or a script. Store Europe/Paris or Europe/Berlin and America/New_York instead.
• Putting the UK on CET. London is an hour behind Paris; use the GMT to EST page for UK times.
• Forgetting the date. 6:00 PM in New York is midnight in Europe, so evening invitations land on the European calendar a day later.

Use cases

Calls between US East Coast offices and colleagues or suppliers in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands or Poland; converting a European webinar or football kickoff to Eastern time; and planning around the March and October changeovers. For UTC timestamps see UTC to EST; for a third city, the Time Zone Converter includes a meeting planner. India-based team members can use EST to IST.