Reading UTC timestamps in Eastern time
UTC is the reference that other time zones are measured from, and it does not change. New York is UTC minus five hours in winter and minus four in summer. A 13:00 UTC timestamp is 8:00 AM in New York in January and 9:00 AM in July. Enter a time or press Use now.
This page suits developers and operations staff reading logs and scheduled jobs. A job set for 02:00 UTC runs at 9:00 PM Eastern the evening before in January and 10:00 PM in July. Because the Eastern offset changes with daylight saving and UTC does not, the same UTC job shifts by an hour on the Eastern clock twice a year.
UTC and GMT show the same clock time, and for a conversion like this the two are interchangeable. The difference is that UTC is a time standard and GMT is a time zone name used in the United Kingdom in winter. A UK local time in summer is not UTC, as it is an hour ahead.
The date line is the main thing to check: UTC times after 00:00 and before 04:00 belong to the previous Eastern evening. 00:00 UTC is 7:00 PM the day before in January. The result says when the day has changed. Swap goes from Eastern to UTC.
Worked examples
Questions about this tool
Is UTC the same as GMT?
For converting clock times they match. UTC is the standard used for timestamps, and GMT is the zone name used by the UK in winter.
Why is New York UTC-5 and not UTC-4?
Both are correct, depending on the season. UTC-5 is winter time and UTC-4 applies during daylight saving.
What is 14:30 UTC on the Eastern clock?
It is 9:30 AM in January and 10:30 AM in July. The result names the abbreviation in effect on the date you enter.
Related tools
Where this comes from: IANA time zone database and the rules behind it ยท RFC 6557, how the time zone database is maintained