PST to EST Converter (and EST to PST)

About this tool

This page converts Pacific Time to Eastern Time and Eastern back to Pacific. The converter starts at 1:00 PM on today's date on the West Coast, a time people often search for, and also shows a live clock for both coasts. It reads the correct label for the date you pick, PST or PDT and EST or EDT, from your browser's time zone database. Under the tool is a printable chart of all 24 hours in both directions.

How to use the converter

1. Pick the direction. Leave it on Pacific to Eastern, or switch to Eastern to Pacific. Swap direction keeps the same moment and flips which side you type in.
2. Enter the date and time. The date matters only around the March and November clock changes, but it also lets the tool print the right abbreviation.
3. Read the result. The large line gives both clock times. The line below gives the full zone names, the UTC offsets and how far apart the coasts are on that date.
4. Need the current time? Press Use current time, or glance at the two clocks under the result.

PST is only half the year

Strictly, PST means Pacific Standard Time, which is UTC-08:00 and is only in use from the first Sunday in November to the second Sunday in March. The rest of the year the Pacific zone, which includes California and Washington, is on Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00. The same is true on the other coast: EST (UTC-05:00) is the winter label and EDT (UTC-04:00) the summer one. In everyday use, people write "PST" and "EST" all year to mean whatever the local clocks say. If you invite someone to a call at "1 PM PST" in July, they almost always understand Pacific clock time, but the safest wording is PT and ET, which carry no season.

Why the difference stays at 3 hours

Both zones follow the same federal rule: 15 U.S.C. 260a, as amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, moves clocks forward at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday of March and back at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of November (NIST). Winter is 8 versus 5 hours behind UTC; summer is 7 versus 4. Either way New York is 3 hours ahead of Los Angeles.

There is one small exception. Each zone switches at its own 2:00 a.m., three hours apart. On Sunday, March 8, 2026, from 2:00 AM Eastern until 2:00 AM Pacific (07:00 to 10:00 UTC), the East is already on daylight time and the West is not, so the gap is 4 hours. On Sunday, November 1, 2026, during the same overnight window, it is 2 hours. In 2027 this happens on March 14 and November 7. The converter handles these windows automatically; the chart is for every other hour of the year.

Arizona is a useful contrast. Most of the state stays on Mountain Standard Time all year, so in summer Phoenix clocks match Los Angeles and in winter they match Denver. If you are converting from Arizona rather than California, use the Time Zone Converter and pick America/Phoenix.

Worked example: 1 PM Pacific

With the default input of 1:00 PM on a summer date, the converter shows 1:00 PM PDT = 4:00 PM EDT and adds that Eastern Time is 3 hours ahead of Pacific Time on this date, with the offsets UTC-07:00 and UTC-04:00. On a winter date the same input gives 1:00 PM PST = 4:00 PM EST with offsets of UTC-08:00 and UTC-05:00. Swap the direction and 4:00 PM Eastern returns 1:00 PM Pacific.

Mental math between the coasts

• West to East: add 3 hours. Anything from 9:00 PM Pacific onward lands after midnight in New York, on the next date.
• East to West: subtract 3 hours. Anything before 3:00 AM Eastern is still the previous evening in Los Angeles.
• Shared office hours: a 9-to-5 day on both coasts only overlaps from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM Eastern, which is 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM Pacific.

Common mistakes

• Subtracting when you should add. Eastern is always the later clock; New York reaches noon before California does.
• Hardcoding UTC-8 in software or a spreadsheet to mean Pacific time. That is right only in winter; store the zone name America/Los_Angeles and let the time zone database pick PST or PDT.
• Forgetting the date for late-evening Pacific times, which can fall on tomorrow in the East.

Use cases

Scheduling calls between offices in Seattle or San Francisco and New York, Boston or Atlanta, checking when a launch announced in ET goes live on the West Coast, and planning travel days so you know what time your body thinks it is. For more than two places at once, the Time Zone Converter adds a meeting planner. Related pages: CST to EST, UTC to PST and UTC to EST.