North America scheduling guide
North America Time Zones
Last reviewed June 19, 2026 by TheWorldTimeMap editorial team
North America has several high-traffic time zones used for business, media, support, travel, and webinars. Daylight-saving changes make the offset date-sensitive, so it is safer to schedule with city-based zones than with fixed offsets.
When this guide helps
Use it for US and Canada meetings, webinar scheduling, product launches, customer support, broadcast timing, and travel planning. The table gives a readable overview, while the links open live clocks, converters, and city pages for exact scheduling.
Date-sensitive caution
Not every place follows the same daylight-saving practice. Use city-specific zones when Arizona, Hawaii, Alaska, Mexico, or Canadian regions are involved. For calendar invitations, include the city name, local time, and date so people and software can verify the intended offset.
Common zones and offsets
Offsets are planning references. Use the linked clock or converter with the exact date when accuracy matters.
| Zone | IANA example | Typical offset | Planning note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eastern Time | America/New_York | UTC-5 / UTC-4 | Used by New York, Washington, Toronto, Atlanta, and major US market schedules. Open |
| Central Time | America/Chicago | UTC-6 / UTC-5 | Used for Chicago, Dallas-area planning, operations teams, and support coverage. Open |
| Mountain Time | America/Denver | UTC-7 / UTC-6 | Used by Denver, Calgary, Salt Lake City, and many western inland schedules. Open |
| Pacific Time | America/Los_Angeles | UTC-8 / UTC-7 | Used by Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, media, and tech teams. Open |
| Alaska Time | America/Anchorage | UTC-9 / UTC-8 | Used across much of Alaska for operations, travel, and support planning. Open |
| Hawaii Time | Pacific/Honolulu | UTC-10 | Used for Hawaii travel, hospitality, and Pacific coordination. Open |
Three-step planning workflow
First, pick the real anchor city for the person or team that owns the event. A broad label such as North America Time Zones is useful for discovery, but calendar software needs a place-based zone such as the IANA examples in the table.
Second, test the exact calendar date and at least one future date if the meeting repeats. This catches daylight-saving gaps, half-hour offsets, regional exceptions, and cases where one side changes clocks before the other side does.
Third, write the invitation with both local times, the city names, and the date. For public pages, webinars, release notes, or customer emails, include a UTC reference only when it helps technical readers verify the same instant.
Common mistakes to avoid
Do not assume that today's offset will still be correct next month. Offsets shown on search pages, dashboards, or old email threads can become stale when daylight-saving rules, regional policies, or date boundaries change.
Do not use a short abbreviation without context. Labels such as CST, IST, BST, and GST can point to different regions, and some labels only apply in standard time or daylight time. Use the abbreviation as a reader-friendly hint, not as the source of truth.
Do not force every live call into the same region's convenient hours. If the overlap is narrow, rotate the inconvenient slot, shorten the live meeting, and move routine status work into written handoffs.
Popular city clocks
Open a city page when you need the local clock, local date, and related planning links instead of a broad regional label.
Open the detailed US guide.
EST to PSTConvert East Coast to Pacific.
PST to ESTConvert Pacific to Eastern.
UTC to CSTConvert UTC to Central time.
New York to London overlapPlan US-Europe meetings.
Data accuracySee how daylight-saving changes are handled.
Data and editorial notes
The live clock links use browser-supported IANA time zones through Intl.DateTimeFormat. The written offsets are planning references, not legal time advice, because governments and regions can change daylight-saving or standard-time rules.
Read Time Zone Data And Accuracy for data handling, Editorial Policy for review standards and advertising separation, or Feedback to report a correction.
Data accuracy explains IANA time zone sources, offset limitations, daylight-saving changes, and correction handling.
Editorial policy describes review standards and keeps regional guidance separate from advertising.
Feedback is the path for reporting stale offsets, broken city links, or unclear regional examples.
Privacy policy explains advertising, consent, analytics, cookies, and local browser storage.
North America Time Zones FAQ
How many time zones are commonly used in North America?
Business scheduling often focuses on Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, and Hawaii time, but local exceptions and country rules can matter.
Is EST the same as Eastern Time?
EST is the standard-time label. Eastern Time may appear as EST or EDT depending on the date. Use America/New_York for exact scheduling.
Why does Hawaii stay different from mainland US time zones?
Hawaii does not currently use daylight saving time, so its gap from mainland zones changes when mainland regions move clocks.