Convert EST to UTC
To convert EST to UTC: 5:00 PM EST is 10:00 PM UTC. EST is UTC-05:00 and UTC is UTC+00:00, so UTC is 5 hours ahead of EST, but not all year, as explained below.
In Coordinated Universal Time
- On a 24-hour clock
- 17:00 EST is 22:00 UTC
- The offsets
- EST is UTC-05:00, UTC is UTC+00:00
- Difference
- UTC is 5 hours ahead of EST
- Date
- Same calendar day.
- This gap does NOT hold all year Convert through the offset in force on the date you care about.
- The two ends switch on different dates, or one does not switch at all.
- EST is only in force part of the year United States: daylight time starts the second Sunday in March, at 02:00 local time and ends the first Sunday in November, at 02:00 local time (Energy Policy Act of 2005, in force since 2007). In 2026 that is 2026-03-08 to 2026-11-01. New York is on EDT between those dates.
- otherwise EDT, UTC-04:00
- Military time zone letters Z (Zulu) is UTC. A to M run east of Greenwich an hour apart, N to Y west, and J is left out. A letter names an offset, so a zone that switches to daylight time changes letter: EST is R, EDT is Q.
- EST is R (Romeo), UTC is Z (Zulu)
- In Zulu notation Four digits on a 24-hour clock, no colon, then Z for UTC.
- 2200Z
- In every zone
- HST 12:00 AKST 13:00 PST 14:00 AKDT 14:00 MST 15:00 PDT 15:00 CST 16:00 MDT 16:00 EST 17:00 CDT 17:00 EDT 18:00 UTC 22:00 GMT 22:00 BST 23:00 CET 23:00 CEST 00:00 EET 00:00 EEST 01:00 MSK 01:00 IST 03:30 SGT 06:00 HKT 06:00 JST 07:00 AEST 08:00 AEDT 09:00 NZST 10:00 NZDT 11:00
How the Time Zone Converter works
Eastern Standard Time (EST) is UTC-05:00 and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is UTC+00:00, so converting EST to UTC means adding 5 hours to the EST time. UTC is 5 hours ahead of EST.
Worked through: 5:00 PM EST is 10:00 PM UTC.
The gap between these two is not the same all year, which is the thing to get right. UTC never shifts and EST does, so the difference moves. Convert through the offset in force on the date you care about rather than through the abbreviation somebody typed; the offsets above are definitions and the abbreviation is a claim about the calendar.
The direction a developer needs: taking a local Eastern timestamp and normalizing it for storage. Add five hours and the date rolls forward for anything after 19:00 Eastern, which is why a naive conversion silently puts evening events on the wrong day. Storing UTC and converting on display is the standard advice precisely because this direction has a date carry in it and the reverse does not announce itself.
One thing worth stating plainly, because it is the most common mistake in this whole subject: an abbreviation is not a place. EST is Eastern Standard Time, which New York uses only part of the year; the rest of the time it is on EDT at UTC-04:00. UTC does not shift. If what you have is a city and a date rather than a pair of abbreviations, that is a different question and needs the tz database, not arithmetic. This is also why the shifting designations exist: ET means Eastern time whichever of the two is in force. Searching for ET and searching for EST to UTC are the same question in two vocabularies, which is why this converter answers both.
Common times for this pair:
- 9:00 AM EST is 2:00 PM UTC - 5:00 PM EST is 10:00 PM UTC - 7:00 PM EST is 12:00 AM UTC the next day - 11:00 PM EST is 4:00 AM UTC the next day
Time Zone Converter FAQ
What is the time difference between EST and UTC?
UTC is 5 hours ahead of EST. EST is UTC-05:00 and UTC is UTC+00:00, and both offsets are definitions rather than measurements, so the subtraction is exact.
What time is 5:00 PM EST in UTC?
5:00 PM EST is 10:00 PM UTC. Add 5 hours and carry the date if it crosses midnight.
Does the difference between EST and UTC change with daylight saving?
Yes, and this is the main thing to watch on this pair. UTC is fixed and EST shifts by an hour for part of the year, so the difference takes more than one value across the year. In 2026 the United States switch runs from 2026-03-08 to 2026-11-01.
Is there anything specific to this pair worth knowing?
The direction a developer needs: taking a local Eastern timestamp and normalizing it for storage. Add five hours and the date rolls forward for anything after 19:00 Eastern, which is why a naive conversion silently puts evening events on the wrong day. Storing UTC and converting on display is the standard advice precisely because this direction has a date carry in it and the reverse does not announce itself.
Someone wrote EST but it is summer. What do they mean?
Almost certainly the zone rather than the abbreviation: New York time, which in summer is EDT at UTC-04:00 rather than EST at UTC-05:00. People type the standard-time abbreviation all year round. If an invitation is an hour out from what you calculated, this is why.