Central time seen from the East Coast
Eastern is one hour ahead of Central, and it is the smallest gap between two of the main US zones. When it is 8:00 AM in Chicago it is 9:00 AM in New York. Enter your time in the box, or press Use now, and the Eastern equivalent is shown straight away.
The label CST means Central Standard Time, which is winter time. For most of the year Central clocks run on daylight time, CDT, and Eastern on EDT. People tend to write CST and EST regardless of the season, and the gap is one hour either way. The page shows the real abbreviation for the date you pick, so a July conversion is labelled with the daylight names.
A company based in Texas with a head office in New York barely has a time difference to manage, but the hour is enough to trip people up at the edges of the day. A 5:45 PM Central wrap-up is already 6:45 PM for New York colleagues. The hour-by-hour table shows a 9:00 to 17:00 Central day against the Eastern clock: it runs 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM there.
Midnight is where mistakes happen. An 11:30 PM Central deadline falls at 12:30 AM Eastern, so it counts as the next calendar day for the East. The result calls that out. If you need Eastern to Central, press swap.
Worked examples
Questions about this tool
Is Eastern ahead of Central or behind it?
Ahead. Add one hour to a Central time to get Eastern time.
Does the one hour gap ever change?
No. Central and Eastern shift their clocks on the same weekends, so the gap stays at one hour all year.
Why does my result say CDT and EDT when I searched for CST and EST?
Because the chosen date falls in daylight saving season. The names are different but the one hour gap is the same.
Related tools
Where this comes from: IANA time zone database and the rules behind it ยท US Department of Transportation, uniform time and daylight saving time