EST to UTC: EST is 4 hours behind UTC
Eastern Time is 4 hours behind Coordinated Universal Time right now. It is 5:04 pm EDT in Eastern and 9:04 pm UTC in UTC.
Convert a specific time from EST to UTC
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 EST and UTC?
Coordinated Universal Time is 4 hours ahead of Eastern Time. To go from EST to UTC you add 4 hours. That gap is not fixed. Across 2026 the distance between these two zones takes 2 different values, from 4 hours to 5 hours, because Eastern moves its clocks and UTC does not. This page recomputes it rather than assuming.
EST to UTC conversion table
Every hour of Thursday, September 24, 2026 in Eastern, with the matching reading in UTC. 4 of the 24 hours land on a different calendar date in UTC, which is the part people get wrong when they schedule across this pair.
| EST | EST 24h | UTC | UTC 24h | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12:00 am | 00:00 | 4:00 am | 04:00 | same day |
| 1:00 am | 01:00 | 5:00 am | 05:00 | same day |
| 2:00 am | 02:00 | 6:00 am | 06:00 | same day |
| 3:00 am | 03:00 | 7:00 am | 07:00 | same day |
| 4:00 am | 04:00 | 8:00 am | 08:00 | same day |
| 5:00 am | 05:00 | 9:00 am | 09:00 | same day |
| 6:00 am | 06:00 | 10:00 am | 10:00 | same day |
| 7:00 am | 07:00 | 11:00 am | 11:00 | same day |
| 8:00 am | 08:00 | 12:00 pm | 12:00 | same day |
| 9:00 am | 09:00 | 1:00 pm | 13:00 | same day |
| 10:00 am | 10:00 | 2:00 pm | 14:00 | same day |
| 11:00 am | 11:00 | 3:00 pm | 15:00 | same day |
| 12:00 pm | 12:00 | 4:00 pm | 16:00 | same day |
| 1:00 pm | 13:00 | 5:00 pm | 17:00 | same day |
| 2:00 pm | 14:00 | 6:00 pm | 18:00 | same day |
| 3:00 pm | 15:00 | 7:00 pm | 19:00 | same day |
| 4:00 pm | 16:00 | 8:00 pm | 20:00 | same day |
| 5:00 pm | 17:00 | 9:00 pm | 21:00 | same day |
| 6:00 pm | 18:00 | 10:00 pm | 22:00 | same day |
| 7:00 pm | 19:00 | 11:00 pm | 23:00 | same day |
| 8:00 pm | 20:00 | 12:00 am | 00:00 | the next day |
| 9:00 pm | 21:00 | 1:00 am | 01:00 | the next day |
| 10:00 pm | 22:00 | 2:00 am | 02:00 | the next day |
| 11:00 pm | 23:00 | 3:00 am | 03:00 | the next day |
What are the best hours to schedule a call between EST and UTC?
4 hours of the standard 9:00 am to 5:00 pm working day line up in both zones, from 9:00 am EST to 1:00 pm EST. In UTC that window reads 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Outside it, one side is either not yet at their desk or already gone.
| EST | UTC | Working hours | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9:00 am | 1:00 pm | both sides | mid morning in Eastern, afternoon in UTC |
| 10:00 am | 2:00 pm | both sides | mid morning in Eastern, afternoon in UTC |
| 11:00 am | 3:00 pm | both sides | mid morning in Eastern, afternoon in UTC |
| 12:00 pm | 4:00 pm | both sides | noon in Eastern, afternoon in UTC |
Does daylight saving change EST to UTC?
Eastern Time is currently on EDT 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-4 to UTC-5.
Coordinated Universal Time does not move its clocks at all, so its UTC+0 offset holds every day of the year.
Because the two sides do not move together, the answer to this conversion changes during the year. For part of the year the gap is 4 hours and for the rest it is 5 hours. The table above is built for today, not for an average day.
Is EST ahead of or behind UTC?
EST is behind UTC by 4 hours: when it is 12:00 pm in Eastern, it is 4:00 pm in UTC. One wrinkle worth knowing: EST and EDT are two names for the same zone, not two zones. Eastern Time reads EST in winter and EDT in summer. When somebody types "est to utc" they nearly always mean the zone rather than the literal winter offset, so this page resolves EST to America/New_York and UTC to Etc/UTC and applies whichever offset is genuinely in force on the day.
Eastern Time covers New York, Toronto, Atlanta and Miami. Coordinated Universal Time covers the reference all other zones are measured against. The identifiers behind them are America/New_York and Etc/UTC, which is what any calendar or scheduling system should be storing rather than a fixed number of hours.
Questions
- What is EST in UTC?
- EST is 4 hours behind UTC. 9:00 am EST is 1:00 pm UTC.
- How many hours ahead is UTC of EST?
- UTC is 4 hours ahead of EST. That varies across the year, between 4 hours and 5 hours.
- What time is it in UTC right now?
- 9:04 pm UTC on Thursday, September 24, 2026.
- When can Eastern and UTC meet during working hours?
- Between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm EST, which is 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm UTC.
- Does this account for daylight saving?
- Yes. Every reading is computed from the IANA database for the actual date, so EDT and UTC are the abbreviations genuinely in force today rather than a fixed assumption.
EST to UTC by the hour
Other conversions
12 and 24 hour converter · 8 hours from now · Today · Day counter