Convert EST (Eastern Standard Time) to SGT (Singapore Time)

Best time to schedule a meeting

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

EST to SGT conversion table

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.

About SGT

Singapore Time (SGT) is UTC+8. It is used in Singapore and Malaysia.

Singapore Time is UTC+8 with no daylight saving. The offset is a historical curiosity: Singapore sits at about 104°E, which is geographically UTC+7, and moved to +8 in 1982 to align with Malaysia and Hong Kong for trade. The result is that the sun is at its highest around 1pm rather than noon, and sunrise is late all year.

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 13-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.

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