What is the difference between CDT and UTC?

UTC is 5 hours ahead of CDT. CDT means Central Daylight Time at UTC-5, and UTC means Coordinated Universal Time at UTC+0.

Which time zone does this page use for CDT?

America/Chicago. An abbreviation is not a time zone — it is a label a zone wears for part of the year — so every calculation here uses a named IANA zone and says which one. If you are writing code, use America/Chicago rather than the string "CDT".

Does CDT mean anything else?

Yes: Cuba Daylight Time at UTC-4. Same letters, one hour apart from the American CDT.

Is CDT a daylight saving abbreviation?

Yes. CDT only exists during the daylight saving part of the year; outside it, the same zone is on a different abbreviation and a different offset.

CDT to UTC

CDT sits at UTC-5; UTC sits at UTC+0. That puts UTC 5 hours ahead of CDT.

Convert a time

From

Date

Time

Converted time

—

The converter needs JavaScript to run. Everything below — offsets, daylight saving dates and the hour-by-hour table — is part of the page and works without it.

Hour by hour

Computed on a date when CDT is genuinely in force — using today would be wrong for half the year, because a standard-time abbreviation does not exist in summer.

CDT	UTC
00:00	05:00
01:00	06:00
02:00	07:00
03:00	08:00
04:00	09:00
05:00	10:00
06:00	11:00
07:00	12:00
08:00	13:00
09:00	14:00
10:00	15:00
11:00	16:00
12:00	17:00
13:00	18:00
14:00	19:00
15:00	20:00
16:00	21:00
17:00	22:00
18:00	23:00
19:00	00:00next day
20:00	01:00next day
21:00	02:00next day
22:00	03:00next day
23:00	04:00next day

What these abbreviations actually are

	CDT	UTC
Full name	Central Daylight Time	Coordinated Universal Time
Representative zone	America/Chicago	UTC
Offset	UTC-5	UTC+0
Seasonal	Daylight saving only	Standard time
Zone changes in 2026	2	0
Other meanings	1	None in common use

Common questions

What is the difference between CDT and UTC?: UTC is 5 hours ahead of CDT. CDT means Central Daylight Time at UTC-5, and UTC means Coordinated Universal Time at UTC+0.
Which time zone does this page use for CDT?: America/Chicago. An abbreviation is not a time zone — it is a label a zone wears for part of the year — so every calculation here uses a named IANA zone and says which one. If you are writing code, use America/Chicago rather than the string "CDT".
Does CDT mean anything else?: Yes: Cuba Daylight Time at UTC-4. Same letters, one hour apart from the American CDT.
Is CDT a daylight saving abbreviation?: Yes. CDT only exists during the daylight saving part of the year; outside it, the same zone is on a different abbreviation and a different offset.