MST to CST: MST is 1 hour behind CST
Mountain Time is 1 hour behind Central Time, on every day of the year. It is 3:04 pm MDT in Mountain and 4:04 pm CDT in Central.
Convert a specific time from MST to CST
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 MST and CST?
Central Time is 1 hour ahead of Mountain Time. To go from MST to CST you add 1 hour. 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.
MST to CST conversion table
Every hour of Thursday, September 24, 2026 in Mountain, with the matching reading in Central. 1 of the 24 hours land on a different calendar date in Central, which is the part people get wrong when they schedule across this pair.
| MST | MST 24h | CST | CST 24h | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12:00 am | 00:00 | 1:00 am | 01:00 | same day |
| 1:00 am | 01:00 | 2:00 am | 02:00 | same day |
| 2:00 am | 02:00 | 3:00 am | 03:00 | same day |
| 3:00 am | 03:00 | 4:00 am | 04:00 | same day |
| 4:00 am | 04:00 | 5:00 am | 05:00 | same day |
| 5:00 am | 05:00 | 6:00 am | 06:00 | same day |
| 6:00 am | 06:00 | 7:00 am | 07:00 | same day |
| 7:00 am | 07:00 | 8:00 am | 08:00 | same day |
| 8:00 am | 08:00 | 9:00 am | 09:00 | same day |
| 9:00 am | 09:00 | 10:00 am | 10:00 | same day |
| 10:00 am | 10:00 | 11:00 am | 11:00 | same day |
| 11:00 am | 11:00 | 12:00 pm | 12:00 | same day |
| 12:00 pm | 12:00 | 1:00 pm | 13:00 | same day |
| 1:00 pm | 13:00 | 2:00 pm | 14:00 | same day |
| 2:00 pm | 14:00 | 3:00 pm | 15:00 | same day |
| 3:00 pm | 15:00 | 4:00 pm | 16:00 | same day |
| 4:00 pm | 16:00 | 5:00 pm | 17:00 | same day |
| 5:00 pm | 17:00 | 6:00 pm | 18:00 | same day |
| 6:00 pm | 18:00 | 7:00 pm | 19:00 | same day |
| 7:00 pm | 19:00 | 8:00 pm | 20:00 | same day |
| 8:00 pm | 20:00 | 9:00 pm | 21:00 | same day |
| 9:00 pm | 21:00 | 10:00 pm | 22:00 | same day |
| 10:00 pm | 22:00 | 11:00 pm | 23:00 | same day |
| 11:00 pm | 23:00 | 12:00 am | 00:00 | the next day |
What are the best hours to schedule a call between MST and CST?
7 hours of the standard 9:00 am to 5:00 pm working day line up in both zones, from 9:00 am MST to 4:00 pm MST. In Central that window reads 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. Outside it, one side is either not yet at their desk or already gone.
| MST | CST | Working hours | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9:00 am | 10:00 am | both sides | mid morning in Mountain, mid morning in Central |
| 10:00 am | 11:00 am | both sides | mid morning in Mountain, mid morning in Central |
| 11:00 am | 12:00 pm | both sides | mid morning in Mountain, noon in Central |
| 12:00 pm | 1:00 pm | both sides | noon in Mountain, afternoon in Central |
| 1:00 pm | 2:00 pm | both sides | afternoon in Mountain, afternoon in Central |
| 2:00 pm | 3:00 pm | both sides | afternoon in Mountain, afternoon in Central |
| 3:00 pm | 4:00 pm | both sides | afternoon in Mountain, afternoon in Central |
Does daylight saving change MST to CST?
Mountain Time is currently on MDT 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-6 to UTC-7.
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.
Is MST ahead of or behind CST?
MST is behind CST by 1 hour: when it is 12:00 pm in Mountain, it is 1:00 pm in Central. One wrinkle worth knowing: MST and MDT are two names for the same zone, not two zones. Mountain Time reads MST in winter and MDT in summer. When somebody types "mst to cst" they nearly always mean the zone rather than the literal winter offset, so this page resolves MST to America/Denver and CST to America/Chicago and applies whichever offset is genuinely in force on the day.
Mountain Time covers Denver, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque and Calgary. Central Time covers Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Winnipeg. The identifiers behind them are America/Denver and America/Chicago, which is what any calendar or scheduling system should be storing rather than a fixed number of hours.
Questions
- What is MST in CST?
- MST is 1 hour behind CST. 9:00 am MST is 10:00 am CST.
- How many hours ahead is CST of MST?
- CST is 1 hour ahead of MST.
- What time is it in Central right now?
- 4:04 pm CDT on Thursday, September 24, 2026.
- When can Mountain and Central meet during working hours?
- Between 9:00 am and 4:00 pm MST, which is 10:00 am to 5:00 pm CST.
- Does this account for daylight saving?
- Yes. Every reading is computed from the IANA database for the actual date, so MDT and CDT are the abbreviations genuinely in force today rather than a fixed assumption.
MST to CST by the hour
Other conversions
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