Convert BRT (Brasília Time) to EST (Eastern Standard Time)

Best time to schedule a meeting

Standard 9–5 working hours overlap for 6 hours: 11:00 AM–5:00 PM BRT (9:00 AM–3:00 PM EST). Schedule meetings inside that window.

BRT to EST conversion table

About BRT

Brasília Time (BRT) is UTC−3. It is used in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and most of populated Brazil.

Brasília Time is UTC−3, covering São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasília. Brazil abolished daylight saving in 2019, so the offset is now fixed year-round — but a great deal of older software, and a lot of published advice, still assumes the southern-hemisphere shift that used to run from October to February. If a Brazilian meeting time was correct last year and is an hour out now, an out-of-date time zone database is the likely cause.

About EST

Eastern Standard Time (EST) is UTC−5. It is used in New York, Toronto, Miami and Atlanta in winter.

Eastern Standard Time is UTC−5 and applies in New York, Toronto, Miami and Atlanta only from November to March. For the other eight months those cities are on EDT, UTC−4. Americans routinely write "EST" year-round to mean "east coast time", so a date given as EST in July is usually meant as EDT and is an hour earlier than written — one of the most common scheduling errors there is. Note also that Panama and Jamaica are on UTC−5 all year and never switch.

Does this gap change with the seasons?

This gap is seasonal. The abbreviations themselves are fixed offsets, but the region on EST switches to EDT (UTC−4) from March to November. So the 2-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.

BRT does not shift, so the whole change comes from one side. A recurring meeting fixed in BRT 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