PST to EST Converter

How to convert Pacific time to Eastern time

Pacific time sits eight hours behind UTC in winter and seven in summer; Eastern time sits five and four hours behind. Either way, the East is three hours further along, so you add three hours to a Pacific time to get the Eastern time. It is the mirror image of the EST to PST converter, and the time zone converter section has the other US, UK and India pairs.

1. Start with the Pacific time, for example 4:30 p.m.
2. Add 3 hours: 4:30 p.m. PT is 7:30 p.m. ET.
3. If the sum reaches midnight or later, subtract 24 hours and move to the next day: 10:00 p.m. PT on Friday is 1:00 a.m. ET on Saturday.
4. Use EST or EDT for the label depending on the date, or write ET.

In the converter above, choose a date and the Pacific time. It resolves the moment using the IANA rules for America/Los_Angeles, then shows the Eastern weekday, date and time with the abbreviation in force (EST or EDT) and the difference in hours. The date matters only on the two nights a year when the clocks change. Reading a server log stamped in UTC? The UTC to EST converter handles that step.

PST or PDT: which label is right today?

Pacific Standard Time (UTC−8) applies only in winter. From the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November, the West Coast is on Pacific Daylight Time (UTC−7). In 2026 PDT runs from March 8 to November 1, and PST then returns until March 14, 2027. The converter prints whichever label applies to the date you pick, so you do not have to remember.

Could the three-hour gap ever change?

Federal law lets a state opt out of daylight saving time and stay on standard time all year, as Hawaii and most of Arizona do, but it does not let a state stay on daylight time permanently. California voters approved Proposition 7 in 2018, which lets the legislature move toward year-round daylight time if Congress allows it, and several other states have passed similar measures. Proposals such as the Sunshine Protection Act would make daylight time permanent nationwide, but none has become law. If the two coasts ever followed different rules, the gap would become two or four hours for part of the year, and this converter would follow the updated IANA rules.

Which states use Pacific and Eastern time?

Pacific time covers California, Washington, most of Oregon and Nevada, and the northern panhandle of Idaho. In Canada it is used in most of British Columbia, and in Mexico the state of Baja California follows it with US daylight saving dates, which keeps Tijuana on the same clock as San Diego.

Eastern time runs from Maine to most of Florida along the Atlantic coast and inland to Ohio, most of Michigan and Indiana, and the eastern parts of Kentucky and Tennessee. Most of Ontario and Quebec, including Toronto and Montreal, also use it, which puts Vancouver and Toronto three hours apart just like Los Angeles and New York.

Tips for working from the West Coast

• Flight times are local at each end. A red-eye that leaves Los Angeles at 10:00 p.m. PT and flies for 5 hours lands at 6:00 a.m. ET, because 10:00 p.m. PT is already 1:00 a.m. ET. Flight duration and the clock difference are separate numbers, and the hours to minutes converter helps with layover math.
• Protect your mornings. A colleague's 11:00 a.m. ET meeting is 8:00 a.m. for you. Share your working hours in your calendar so East Coast teams can see them.
• Watch the evening date change. Anything you send after 9:00 p.m. PT arrives on the next calendar day in the East, which matters for date-stamped filings and daily reports.
• Count the days, then the hours. For a multi-day deadline, first find the date with the days between dates calculator, then convert the cut-off hour here.