CST to EST Converter (and EST to CST)

About this tool

Use this converter to turn Central Time into Eastern Time, or Eastern into Central, for any date. It opens at 10:00 AM Central on today's date, shows both clocks ticking live, and names the correct seasonal abbreviation (CST or CDT, EST or EDT) for the date you choose. A printable one-page chart of every hour in both directions sits below the tool.

How to use it

1. Choose a direction from the menu: Central to Eastern, or Eastern to Central.
2. Type the date and the clock time on the side you are converting from. The label above each field says which zone it expects.
3. Read the answer in the result box, together with both UTC offsets and a sentence stating the gap on that date.
4. Swap direction flips the question while keeping the same moment, and Copy result puts the answer on your clipboard.

One hour, almost always

Central Standard Time is UTC-06:00 and Eastern Standard Time is UTC-05:00. In summer both move forward one hour, to CDT (UTC-05:00) and EDT (UTC-04:00). Because both US zones use the federal schedule of the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November (NIST), Eastern stays exactly one hour ahead of Central throughout the year.

The only wrinkle comes from each zone switching at its own local 2:00 a.m. On Sunday, March 8, 2026, for the single hour between 2:00 AM Eastern and 2:00 AM Central, New York has sprung forward and Chicago has not, so the clocks are 2 hours apart. On Sunday, November 1, 2026, New York falls back first: for one hour both cities show the same clock time, 1:00 to 1:59 AM, one on EST and one on CDT. The same pattern repeats on March 14 and November 7, 2027. The converter applies these hours correctly; the chart, like most schedules, assumes the usual 1-hour gap.

Like PST and PDT, CST is technically the winter label only. People commonly write "CST" in July when they mean Central clock time, which is actually CDT. Writing CT is unambiguous, and it also avoids a clash with China Standard Time, which uses the same three letters.

Places that keep CST all year

Not everyone who says "Central Standard Time" changes their clocks. Saskatchewan's Time Act makes central standard time, defined as UTC-6, the time observed in the province, with no seasonal change, although it allows a few border "time option areas" to follow a neighbour instead. So Regina is 1 hour behind New York in winter but 2 hours behind in summer. Mexico ended seasonal clock changes for most of the country in 2022 (Bloomberg Línea), so Mexico City stays on UTC-6 all year, while some border cities such as Matamoros still switch with the US. If your contact is in one of those places, pick America/Regina or America/Mexico_City in the Time Zone Converter rather than using this page.

Worked example: 10 AM Central

The converter loads with 10:00 AM in Central Time. On a date between March and November it prints 10:00 AM CDT = 11:00 AM EDT, then the offsets UTC-05:00 and UTC-04:00 and the sentence "Eastern Time is 1 hour ahead of Central Time on this date." In winter it prints 10:00 AM CST = 11:00 AM EST with UTC-06:00 and UTC-05:00. Switch to Eastern to Central and 11:00 AM comes back as 10:00 AM.

Common mistakes

• Going the wrong way. Eastern is ahead: when it is noon in Atlanta it is 11 AM in Chicago, Dallas or Houston, not 1 PM.
• Treating all of Canada's Central zone alike. Winnipeg changes its clocks; Regina does not.
• Forgetting that a midnight Eastern deadline is 11 PM Central on the previous day.
• Using a fixed UTC-6 for Chicago in a spreadsheet. That only matches CST; from March to November Chicago is UTC-5.

Use cases

Coordinating between offices in Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas or Nashville and the East Coast, turning an Eastern webinar start into local time, or confirming whether a filing deadline stated in ET has already passed for you. For other pairs see PST to EST, UTC to EST and EST to IST; to count hours between two times use the Time Duration Calculator.