The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama,

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Ca ...

, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small portion of westernmost

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

in South America, along with certain

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean S ...

and Atlantic islands. Places that use: * Eastern Standard Time (EST), when observing

standard time Standard time is the synchronisation of clocks within a geographical region to a single time standard, rather than a local mean time standard. Generally, standard time agrees with the local mean time at some meridian that passes through the r ...

(autumn/winter), are five hours behind

Coordinated Universal Time Coordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about one second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently ...

( UTC−05:00). * Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), when observing

daylight saving time Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time or simply daylight time (United States, Canada, and Australia), and summer time (United Kingdom, European Union, and others), is the practice of advancing clocks (typical ...

(spring/summer), are four hours behind Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC−04:00). On the second Sunday in March, at 2:00 a.m. EST, clocks are advanced to 3:00 a.m. EDT leaving a one-hour "gap". On the first Sunday in November, at 2:00 a.m. EDT, clocks are moved back to 1:00 a.m. EST, thus "duplicating" one hour. Southern parts of the zone (Panama and the Caribbean) do not observe daylight saving time.

History

The boundaries of the Eastern Time Zone have moved westward since the

Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminat ...

(ICC) took over time-zone management from railroads in 1938. For example, the easternmost and northernmost counties in Kentucky were added to the zone in the 1940s, and in 1961 most of the state went Eastern. In 2000, Wayne County, on the Tennessee border, switched from Central to Eastern. Within the United States, the Eastern Time Zone is the most populous region, with nearly half of the country's population. In March 2019, the

Florida Legislature The Florida Legislature is the legislature of the U.S. State of Florida. It is organized as a bicameral body composed of an upper chamber, the Senate, and a lower chamber, the House of Representatives. Article III, Section 1 of the Florida Cons ...

passed a bill requesting authorization from Congress for year-round daylight saving time, which would effectively put Florida on Atlantic Standard Time year-round (except for west of the

Apalachicola River The Apalachicola River is a river, approximately 160 mi (180 km) long in the state of Florida. The river's large watershed, known as the ACF River Basin, drains an area of approximately into the Gulf of Mexico. The distance to its fa ...

, which would be on Eastern Standard Time year-round). A similar bill was proposed for the

Canadian province Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...

of Ontario by its legislative assembly in late 2020, which would have a similar effect on the province if passed.

Daylight saving time

For those in the United States, daylight saving time for the Eastern Time Zone was introduced by the

Uniform Time Act The Uniform Time Act of 1966, , was a Law of the United States to "promote the adoption and observance of uniform time within the standard time zones" prescribed by the Standard Time Act of 1918. Its intended effect was to simplify the officia ...

of 1966, which specified that daylight saving time would run from the last Sunday of April until the last Sunday in October. The act was amended to make the first Sunday in April the beginning of daylight saving time beginning in 1987. Later, the

Energy Policy Act of 2005 The Energy Policy Act of 2005 () is a federal law signed by President George W. Bush on August 8, 2005, at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The act, described by proponents as an attempt to combat growing energy problems ...

extended daylight saving time in the United States, beginning in 2007. Since then, local times change at 2:00 a.m. EST to 3:00 a.m. EDT on the second Sunday in March, and return from 2:00 a.m. EDT to 1:00 a.m. EST on the first Sunday in November. In Canada, daylight saving time begins and ends on the same days and at the same times as it does in the United States.

Canada

, the following

provinces and territories Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...

are part of the Eastern Time Zone: Within Canada, as with the United States, the Eastern Time zone is the most populous time zone. * Most of Ontario * Most of Quebec * Most of

Nunavut Nunavut ( , ; iu, ᓄᓇᕗᑦ , ; ) is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' ...

Most of Canada observes daylight saving time synchronously with the United States, with the exception of Saskatchewan, Yukon, and several other very localized areas.

United States

The boundary between time zones is set forth in the

Code of Federal Regulations In the law of the United States, the ''Code of Federal Regulations'' (''CFR'') is the codification of the general and permanent regulations promulgated by the executive departments and agencies of the federal government of the United States. ...

, with the boundary between the Eastern and Central Time Zones being specifically detailed in 49 C.F.R. part 71. Washington, D.C. and 17 states are located entirely within the Eastern Time Zone. They are: *

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacen ...

* Georgia * Maine * Maryland * Massachusetts * New Hampshire * New Jersey *

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

* North Carolina * Ohio * Pennsylvania * Rhode Island * South Carolina * Vermont * Virginia * West Virginia Five states are partly in the Eastern Time Zone, with the remaining portions in the Central Time Zone. The following locations observe Eastern Time: * Florida – peninsula and Big Bend regions east of the

along with portions of Gulf County south of the Intracoastal Waterway. * Indiana – all except for northwest (

Gary Gary may refer to: *Gary (given name), a common masculine given name, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name *Gary, Indiana, the largest city named Gary Places ;Iran *Gary, Iran, Sistan and Baluchestan Province ;Unit ...

) and southwest ( Evansville) regions * Kentucky – eastern 60%, including the state's three largest metropolitan areas: Louisville, Lexington, Northern Kentucky * Michigan – all, except for the four Upper Peninsula counties that border Wisconsin: Gogebic, Iron, Dickinson, and Menominee * Tennessee –

East Tennessee East Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. Geographically and socioculturally distinct, it comprises approximately the eastern third of the U.S. state of Tennessee. East Tennessee consists of 33 count ...

Additionally,

Phenix City, Alabama Phenix City is a city in Lee and Russell counties in the U.S. state of Alabama, and the county seat of Russell County. As of the 2020 Census, the population of the city was 38,817. Phenix City lies immediately west across the Chattahoochee R ...

, and several nearby communities in Russell County, Alabama, unofficially observe Eastern Time. This is due to their close proximity to Columbus, Georgia, which is on Eastern Time.

Mexico

* Quintana Roo: This is the only Mexican state to observe EST. It moved from Central Time to Eastern Time after a successful lobbying effort by tourism interests. Quintana Roo does not observe daylight saving time.

Caribbean islands

The Bahamas and

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

officially observe both Eastern Standard Time during the winter months and Eastern Daylight Time during the summer months. Cuba generally follows the U.S. with Eastern Standard Time in the winter, and Eastern Daylight Time in the summer, but the exact day of change varies year to year. The

Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territory—the largest by population in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located to t ...

and Jamaica use Eastern Standard Time year-round.

Turks and Caicos Islands

The Turks and Caicos Islands followed Eastern Time with daylight saving until 2015, when the territory switched to the

Atlantic Time Zone The Atlantic Time Zone is a geographical region that keeps standard time—called Atlantic Standard Time (AST)—by subtracting four hours from Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC), resulting in UTC−04:00. AST is observed in parts of North America ...

. The Turks and Caicos Islands switched back to the pre-2015 schedule in March 2018. A 2017 consultation paper highlighted the advantage for business and tourism of being in the same time zone as the eastern United States as an important factor in the decision.

South America

In South America, the Brazilian states of

Acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...

and the southwest part of Amazonas use Eastern Standard Time. In 2008, Brazil changed the zone of these regions to be closer to that of the Brazilian Capital; however, the change was unpopular and thus undone in 2013. Additionally, the countries of Panama, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador (excluding the Galápagos Islands, which use Central Standard Time), also use Eastern Standard Time year-round.

References

External links

Official U.S. time in the Eastern time zone

North American Time Zone border data and images

History of U.S. time zones and UTC conversion

Official times across Canada

{{North American time zones Time in Canada Time in Mexico Time zones Time zones in the United States