Current time in Chicago
Time zone America/Chicago (United States). See the live time and date in Chicago and how far ahead of or behind you it is; the planner finds the best hour for everyone.
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Meeting planner
Pick a day and a time in one city and see what time it is in the others. The bars below show the whole day in the base city, so you can spot where everyone overlaps.
| City | Time | Day bar |
|---|
- Work hours: 9 AM to 6 PM
- Reasonable: 7 AM to 9 AM and 6 PM to 10 PM
- Night: 10 PM to 7 AM
How the time is calculated
The time is calculated from your device’s clock and your browser’s time zone rules. If your device’s clock is wrong, every city will be off by the same amount. If a country changed its rules recently, an out-of-date browser may show the wrong time.
Many places do not change their clocks during the year. Arizona, Hawaii, and India, for example, keep the same time all year.
Your time zone
How to use it
- Check the starting cities: each card shows its time, its date, and how many hours it is ahead of or behind you.
- Search for another city or country in the search box and add it. Reorder the list with the arrows or by dragging.
- In the meeting planner, choose a base city, a day, and a time, and see the equivalent time in every city over a 24-hour bar.
- Look for where everyone overlaps, copy the result as text for your invitation, or share a link with the same list.
Frequently asked questions
Where does the time on the clock come from?
It is calculated from your device’s clock and the time zone rules built into your browser, without asking any server. That is why it keeps working offline once the page has loaded. If your device’s clock is wrong, every city will be off by the same amount.
Does it adjust for daylight saving time automatically?
Yes. Each city follows the rules of its own time zone, so it changes by itself on the right day. Each card shows whether the city is on daylight saving time and the date of the next change. If a country changed its rules recently, an out-of-date browser may show the wrong time.
Why doesn’t Arizona change its clocks?
Arizona (apart from the Navajo Nation) stays on UTC−7 all year and does not use daylight saving time, and neither do Hawaii and most US territories. That is why Phoenix is on the same time as Denver in winter but on the same time as Los Angeles in summer.
How do I find a good time for a meeting across several countries?
In the planner, each city has a bar for its day: dark blue is work hours (9 AM to 6 PM), light blue is reasonable (7 AM to 9 AM and 6 PM to 10 PM), and striped is night. The “Everyone overlaps” row marks the stretches where nobody is outside reasonable hours. Click the bar or use the slider to try different times.
Where is my list of cities saved?
Only in your browser, in the site’s own storage. There are no accounts and no servers. If you clear the site data or switch browsers, you go back to the starting list. To take your list somewhere else, copy the share link.
Can I add a city that is not on the list?
The list has more than 300 capitals and large cities. If yours is missing, type the name of its time zone in the search box, for example America/Indiana/Indianapolis, and it is added with the correct time.
Current time in Chicago
Chicago is in the America/Chicago time zone, in the United States. It is on UTC−6 during standard time and UTC−5 during daylight saving time. In everyday use the time zone is called Central Time (CST/CDT). Chicago is home to the CME Group and Cboe, two of the largest derivatives exchanges in the world. Central Time also covers Dallas, Houston, Minneapolis, New Orleans, and most of the Midwest.
Daylight saving time in Chicago
Like the rest of the United States, Chicago moves its clocks forward one hour on the second Sunday in March and back one hour on the first Sunday in November, switching between Central Standard Time (CST, UTC−6) and Central Daylight Time (CDT, UTC−5).
Time difference with other cities
The card above gives the exact gap between Chicago and where you are, including the next clock change. For reference, these are the usual gaps with other big cities:
- With New York: New York is 1 hour ahead of Chicago all year.
- With Los Angeles: Los Angeles is 2 hours behind Chicago all year.
- With Denver: Denver is 1 hour behind Chicago all year.
- With London: London is usually 6 hours ahead of Chicago; for a few weeks around the clock changes the gap is 5 hours.
- With Mexico City: Mexico City is on the same time as Chicago for part of the year and 1 hour behind it for the rest.
- With Mumbai: Mumbai is between 10½ and 11½ hours ahead of Chicago, depending on the time of year.
Business hours converted
On a typical day, when it is 9:00 AM in Chicago it is 10:00 AM in New York, 7:00 AM in Los Angeles, and 8:00 AM in Denver; when it is 6:00 PM it is 7:00 PM in New York, 4:00 PM in Los Angeles, and 5:00 PM in Denver. Central Time sits one hour behind New York and two hours ahead of Los Angeles, which makes it a convenient middle ground for coast-to-coast calls. Be careful with the abbreviation: “CST” also means China Standard Time and Cuba Standard Time.
Plan a meeting
A standard workday in Chicago runs from about 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM local time. With the meeting planner you pick a day and a time and see the 24-hour bar of each city, with the stretch where nobody is outside reasonable hours. When daylight saving time starts or ends, the clock recalculates everything by itself.
More time pages: time in New York, time in Los Angeles, time in Denver, time in London, time in Mexico City, time in Mumbai.
Times are calculated with your browser’s time zone rules and can change if a country changes its rules; the card above always shows today’s exact value.
Updated on September 30, 2026