Convert EAT to AST

AST is 7 hours behind EAT. EAT is UTC+3 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 overlap for 1 hour: 4:00 PM–5:00 PM EAT (9:00 AM–10:00 AM AST). Schedule meetings inside that window.

EAT to AST conversion table

About EAT

East Africa Time (EAT) is UTC+3. It is used in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda and Somalia.

East Africa Time is UTC+3 and fixed. Nairobi, Addis Ababa and Dar es Salaam all keep it. Ethiopia additionally uses a clock that counts from dawn rather than midnight for everyday purposes, six hours off the international one, so a time given locally in Addis may need converting twice rather than once.

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?

Neither EAT nor AST shifts with the seasons, so this 7-hour difference holds all year. That is unusual enough to be worth relying on: most cross-continental gaps move twice a year.

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 EAT conversions

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

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