UTC to CST Converter

UTC to CST Conversion Table

Full 24-hour table. CST is UTC-6 and CDT is UTC-5 (second Sunday in March to first Sunday in November).

* Before 06:00 UTC on CST (05:00 on CDT) the Central time falls on the previous calendar day.

Central Time Is Not One Offset

Chicago moves its clocks, but not every place called “Central” does. Saskatchewan, Mexico and Central America stay on UTC-6 all year, and Manitoba has decided to stay on UTC-5 from November 1, 2026. The offsets on two dates in 2027:

In summer Regina, Mexico City and Guatemala City are one hour behind Chicago, and in winter they match it. Winnipeg is the other way round: it matches Chicago in summer and is one hour ahead of it in winter, level with New York.

Three Meanings of CST

The same three letters name time zones on three continents, which is how a UTC conversion goes wrong before any arithmetic. At 12:00 UTC:

If a message says “CST” and the sender is in Beijing, use UTC+8. When in doubt, ask for the city. The abbreviation ambiguity guide lists the other clashes.

A Chicago Workday in UTC

A 9-to-5 day in Chicago starts in the UTC afternoon and ends after the UTC date has changed in winter. It starts one hour earlier in UTC in summer:

When Chicago Changes

Central Time moves forward at 2:00 AM on the second Sunday in March and back at 2:00 AM on the first Sunday in November. UTC does not move, so the offset changes: 17:00 UTC is 11:00 AM on CST and 12:00 PM on CDT. The next three years, from the time zone database (the 2026 daylight saving page has every region):

Converting a Timestamp in Code

# Python 3.9+
from datetime import datetime
from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo
datetime.fromisoformat("2026-01-20T15:00:00+00:00").astimezone(ZoneInfo("America/Chicago"))

// JavaScript
new Date("2026-01-20T15:00:00Z").toLocaleString("en-US", { timeZone: "America/Chicago" })

Both give the CST time shown above.

Related Conversions