Time zone · Americas
CDT
Central Daylight Time
Central Daylight Time (CDT) is the spring-forward sibling of Central Standard Time, shifting clocks ahead by an hour across the heartland of North America — from U.S. cities like Chicago and Fargo and Canada's Winnipeg, to border hubs like Matamoros, Mexico. With 12 member zones spanning the United States, Mexico, and Canada, CDT gives the region an extra hour of evening sunshine from the second Sunday in March until clocks fall back on the first Sunday in November.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Current offset
UTC-05:00
Daylight · CDT
Daylight saving
Active
Reverts 1 Nov 2026
IANA zones
12
12 observe DST, 0 don't
DST offset
—
No summer variant
About CDT
Standard time, with a summer shift.
Central Daylight Time (CDT) is the spring-forward sibling of Central Standard Time, shifting clocks ahead by an hour across the heartland of North America — from U.S. cities like Chicago and Fargo and Canada's Winnipeg, to border hubs like Matamoros, Mexico. With 12 member zones spanning the United States, Mexico, and Canada, CDT gives the region an extra hour of evening sunshine from the second Sunday in March until clocks fall back on the first Sunday in November.
IANA zones · the technical identifiers
The 12 zones that resolve to CDT.
For software, always store the IANA identifier — never the abbreviation alone. The database keeps these zones distinct because their rules can, and historically did, diverge.
Cities across CDT
Local time, city by city.
15 cities
Where CDT is used
3 countries.
Same offset · UTC-05:00
Other zones at UTC-05:00 right now.
These named zones share CDT's offset today. When daylight saving rules differ, they drift apart for part of the year.
Convert
CDT to the world's clocks.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about CDT, daylight saving, and how to handle it in software. Can't find what you need? Email [email protected].
- Which U.S. regions remain in the Central Time zone year-round?
- None in the United States: every U.S. area on Central Time switches between CST and CDT. Most of Saskatchewan in Canada and most of Mexico stay on Central Standard Time all year.
- When do Central clocks spring forward and fall back?
- Clocks move forward one hour at 2:00 a.m. local standard time on the second Sunday in March (becoming 3:00 a.m. CDT) and fall back at 2:00 a.m. CDT on the first Sunday in November (returning to 1:00 a.m. CST).
- Why does Matamoros, Mexico, appear in the CDT region?
- Since 2010, Mexico has let municipalities on the U.S. border follow U.S. daylight saving dates to simplify commerce and travel, and they kept doing so when the rest of Mexico dropped daylight saving in 2022. Matamoros joined this group, keeping the same schedule as its Texan neighbors.
- How many time changes do most Central zones handle each year?
- Typically two — one in spring and one in autumn.
Source: IANA tzdb2026d · Reviewed
Free · Developer API
This time zone, as JSON.
Its defining offset, DST status and member counts, from one endpoint.
Also in the API: time zones by coordinates, conversions that flag daylight saving gaps, and abbreviations decoded.
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