Texas Time Zone Map

Texas is in the Central Time Zone, with one exception at the far western end. El Paso County and Hudspeth County, the two westernmost counties, which border New Mexico and Mexico, are on Mountain Time. Everything east of them, from Dallas and Houston to Lubbock and Amarillo, is Central.

The line is in federal regulation. It follows the Texas-New Mexico border west to the east line of Hudspeth County, then runs south along that county line to the Mexican border. The wording is in 49 CFR § 71.7.

Local practice does not always match the legal line. The National Park Service runs Guadalupe Mountains National Park on Mountain Time and tells visitors to set their phones by hand, because the cell towers there report Central Time. The park's own note calls it Mountain Time “barely”.

Mexico ended daylight saving time for most of the country in October 2022, and Chihuahua state moved to UTC-6 all year. Ciudad Juárez, which sits directly across the river from El Paso, stayed with the United States. The time zone database shows Juárez on the El Paso clock again from November 30, 2022, after about a month on the rest of Chihuahua's time.

So the two cities share one clock all year, and Chihuahua City, further south, is an hour ahead of El Paso in winter and level with it in summer. Anyone who commutes or ships across the bridge has to know which side of that difference a schedule was written for.

Both Texas zones change their clocks on the US dates, the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November. The map does not move; the UTC offsets do. Central Texas goes from UTC-6 to UTC-5, and El Paso goes from UTC-7 to UTC-6.

In 2025 the legislature passed HB 1393, signed in June, which would put Texas on permanent daylight time and call it “Texas Time”. Federal law does not let a state do that on its own, so the bill waits for Congress, and it had not taken effect when this page was last reviewed in October 2026. The Sunshine Protection Act post follows the federal side, and the 2027 daylight saving page lists the dates that apply until then.

A meeting at 9:00 AM in Dallas is 8:00 AM in El Paso in every month. The risk is the reverse: a statewide call set for 8:00 AM Central is 7:00 AM for El Paso, and a deadline at 5:00 PM Central is 4:00 PM there. For schedules that include both ends of the state, write the zone next to the time, and use a city rather than the word “Texas”.

Counting against the rest of the country: Dallas is one hour behind New York and two hours ahead of Los Angeles, all year. El Paso is two hours behind New York and one hour ahead of Los Angeles, also all year.