Convert AEST to AST

AST is 14 hours behind AEST. AEST is UTC+10 and AST is UTC−4.

Which AST is this?

AST names more than one zone. This page reads it as Atlantic Standard Time at UTC−4, which is the reading most converters take. There is one other: Arabia Standard Time at UTC+3, used in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Yemen.

The letters on a meeting invitation do not say which one is meant. If yours is not Atlantic Standard Time, the answer above is wrong, and not by a little:

The large converter sites disagree about this as well: search for a AST conversion and some of the results answer for one reading and some for another, none of them saying which they chose. Where it matters, ask which country the sender is in rather than which letters they typed.

Best time to schedule a meeting

Standard 9–5 working hours do not overlap at all between AEST and AST. Someone has to take an early or late call — or use asynchronous communication instead.

AEST to AST conversion table

About AEST

Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) is UTC+10. It is used in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in the southern winter.

Australian Eastern Standard Time is UTC+10, covering Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra in winter. The complication is that Queensland does not observe daylight saving while New South Wales and Victoria do — so from October to April, Brisbane stays on AEST while Sydney moves to AEDT, and two cities on the same coast are an hour apart for half the year.

About AST

Atlantic Standard Time (AST) is UTC−4. It is used in Halifax, Puerto Rico and the eastern Caribbean in winter.

Atlantic Standard Time is UTC−4, one hour ahead of Eastern. It covers Canada's Atlantic provinces, Puerto Rico and much of the eastern Caribbean, and it is the reason a call from Halifax to Toronto is an hour out from what either party expects. The abbreviation is also used for Arabia Standard Time at UTC+3, seven hours away in the other direction, which is a genuinely dangerous collision in scheduling.

Does this gap change with the seasons?

This gap is seasonal. The abbreviations themselves are fixed offsets, but the region on AEST switches to AEDT (UTC+11) from October to April. So the 14-hour figure on this page is correct for the part of the year when both places are actually on these abbreviations, and changes by an hour outside it.

AST does not shift, so the whole change comes from one side. A recurring meeting fixed in AST will appear to move by an hour for everyone on the other side, twice a year, without anyone changing anything.

This is the reason scheduling systems store an IANA zone such as Region/City rather than an offset or an abbreviation: the zone knows its own rules and the offset does not.

Frequently asked questions

Other AEST conversions

• AEST to UTC
• AEST to GMT
• AEST to EST
• AEST to EDT
• AEST to CST
• AEST to CDT
• AEST to MST
• AEST to MDT
• AEST to PST
• AEST to PDT
• AEST to AKST
• AEST to HST
• AEST to BRT
• AEST to BST
• AEST to CET
• AEST to CEST

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