CST to PST: CST is 2 hours ahead of PST
Central Time is 2 hours ahead of Pacific Time, on every day of the year. It is 2:37 pm CDT in Central and 12:37 pm PDT in Pacific.
Convert a specific time from CST to PST
Pick any time and date to convert it both ways. The conversion runs in your browser against the real zone rules, so a date inside a daylight saving period gets that period's offset rather than today's.
What is the time difference between CST and PST?
Pacific Time is 2 hours behind Central Time. To go from CST to PST you subtract 2 hours. That gap holds on all 365 days of 2026: both zones move their clocks, but on the same dates and in the same direction, so the distance between them never changes.
CST to PST conversion table
Every hour of Wednesday, September 23, 2026 in Central, with the matching reading in Pacific. 2 of the 24 hours land on a different calendar date in Pacific, which is the part people get wrong when they schedule across this pair.
| CST | CST 24h | PST | PST 24h | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12:00 am | 00:00 | 10:00 pm | 22:00 | the previous day |
| 1:00 am | 01:00 | 11:00 pm | 23:00 | the previous day |
| 2:00 am | 02:00 | 12:00 am | 00:00 | same day |
| 3:00 am | 03:00 | 1:00 am | 01:00 | same day |
| 4:00 am | 04:00 | 2:00 am | 02:00 | same day |
| 5:00 am | 05:00 | 3:00 am | 03:00 | same day |
| 6:00 am | 06:00 | 4:00 am | 04:00 | same day |
| 7:00 am | 07:00 | 5:00 am | 05:00 | same day |
| 8:00 am | 08:00 | 6:00 am | 06:00 | same day |
| 9:00 am | 09:00 | 7:00 am | 07:00 | same day |
| 10:00 am | 10:00 | 8:00 am | 08:00 | same day |
| 11:00 am | 11:00 | 9:00 am | 09:00 | same day |
| 12:00 pm | 12:00 | 10:00 am | 10:00 | same day |
| 1:00 pm | 13:00 | 11:00 am | 11:00 | same day |
| 2:00 pm | 14:00 | 12:00 pm | 12:00 | same day |
| 3:00 pm | 15:00 | 1:00 pm | 13:00 | same day |
| 4:00 pm | 16:00 | 2:00 pm | 14:00 | same day |
| 5:00 pm | 17:00 | 3:00 pm | 15:00 | same day |
| 6:00 pm | 18:00 | 4:00 pm | 16:00 | same day |
| 7:00 pm | 19:00 | 5:00 pm | 17:00 | same day |
| 8:00 pm | 20:00 | 6:00 pm | 18:00 | same day |
| 9:00 pm | 21:00 | 7:00 pm | 19:00 | same day |
| 10:00 pm | 22:00 | 8:00 pm | 20:00 | same day |
| 11:00 pm | 23:00 | 9:00 pm | 21:00 | same day |
What are the best hours to schedule a call between CST and PST?
6 hours of the standard 9:00 am to 5:00 pm working day line up in both zones, from 11:00 am CST to 5:00 pm CST. In Pacific that window reads 9:00 am to 3:00 pm. Outside it, one side is either not yet at their desk or already gone.
| CST | PST | Working hours | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11:00 am | 9:00 am | both sides | mid morning in Central, mid morning in Pacific |
| 12:00 pm | 10:00 am | both sides | noon in Central, mid morning in Pacific |
| 1:00 pm | 11:00 am | both sides | afternoon in Central, mid morning in Pacific |
| 2:00 pm | 12:00 pm | both sides | afternoon in Central, noon in Pacific |
| 3:00 pm | 1:00 pm | both sides | afternoon in Central, afternoon in Pacific |
| 4:00 pm | 2:00 pm | both sides | afternoon in Central, afternoon in Pacific |
Does daylight saving change CST to PST?
Central Time is currently on CDT and changes next on Sunday, November 1, 2026, when the clock falls back from 1:59 am to 1:00 am and the offset moves from UTC-5 to UTC-6.
Pacific Time is currently on PDT and changes next on Sunday, November 1, 2026, when the clock falls back from 1:59 am to 1:00 am and the offset moves from UTC-7 to UTC-8.
Is CST ahead of or behind PST?
CST is ahead of PST by 2 hours: when it is 12:00 pm in Central, it is 10:00 am in Pacific. One wrinkle worth knowing: CST and CDT are two names for the same zone, not two zones. Central Time reads CST in winter and CDT in summer. When somebody types "cst to pst" they nearly always mean the zone rather than the literal winter offset, so this page resolves CST to America/Chicago and PST to America/Los_Angeles and applies whichever offset is genuinely in force on the day.
Central Time covers Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Winnipeg. Pacific Time covers Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver. The identifiers behind them are America/Chicago and America/Los_Angeles, which is what any calendar or scheduling system should be storing rather than a fixed number of hours.
Questions
- What is CST in PST?
- CST is 2 hours ahead of PST. 9:00 am CST is 7:00 am PST.
- How many hours ahead is PST of CST?
- PST is 2 hours behind CST.
- What time is it in Pacific right now?
- 12:37 pm PDT on Wednesday, September 23, 2026.
- When can Central and Pacific meet during working hours?
- Between 11:00 am and 5:00 pm CST, which is 9:00 am to 3:00 pm PST.
- Does this account for daylight saving?
- Yes. Every reading is computed from the IANA database for the actual date, so CDT and PDT are the abbreviations genuinely in force today rather than a fixed assumption.
CST to PST by the hour
Other conversions
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