Time difference between the United States and Russia

Q: What is the time difference between the United States and Russia?

There is no single figure. the United States spans 6 of the offsets in this data, so the difference runs from 7 hours (New York to Moscow) to 13 hours (Honolulu to Moscow). Any converter giving one number for this pair has quietly picked a city.

7 hours to 13 hours, depending on the city

Why there is no single answer

The United States spans 6 different offsets in this data — New York at UTC−5, Chicago at UTC−6, Denver at UTC−7, Los Angeles at UTC−8, Anchorage at UTC−9, Honolulu at UTC−10. One number cannot cover 6 offsets, so any single figure for "the United States to Russia" is a choice of city — declared or not. That is why two sources can both be right and still disagree, and why the useful answer is the table rather than the number.

Every combination

From	To	Usual difference	Changes in the year
New York	Moscow	7 hours ahead	yes — also 8 hours
Chicago	Moscow	8 hours ahead	yes — also 9 hours
Denver	Moscow	9 hours ahead	yes — also 10 hours
Los Angeles	Moscow	10 hours ahead	yes — also 11 hours
Anchorage	Moscow	11 hours ahead	yes — also 12 hours
Honolulu	Moscow	13 hours ahead	no

When the gap moves

5 of these 6 combinations change by an hour at some point in the year. New York, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and Anchorage go forward on the second Sunday in March and back on the first Sunday in November; Honolulu and Moscow do not change their clocks. Where the two sides change on different weekends, there is a stretch of days when the difference is what neither party expects.

Frequently asked questions

What is the time difference between the United States and Russia?

There is no single figure. the United States spans 6 of the offsets in this data, so the difference runs from 7 hours (New York to Moscow) to 13 hours (Honolulu to Moscow). Any converter giving one number for this pair has quietly picked a city.

How many hours ahead is Russia of the United States?

It depends which part of the United States you mean. The table on this page gives every combination; the extremes are 7 hours and 13 hours.

Does the difference between the United States and Russia change during the year?

Yes. 5 of the 6 city combinations here shift by an hour at some point, because the two sides change their clocks on different weekends or one of them does not change at all.

About these places

New York. New York is UTC−5 in winter and UTC−4 from March to November, and it changes clocks on different weekends from Europe — a fortnight in March and a week in autumn when the transatlantic gap is an hour off what everyone expects.

Chicago. Chicago is UTC−6 in winter, the US Central zone, and the one people most often mean by an unqualified "CST" — a reading that collides with China Standard Time fourteen hours the other way.

Denver. Denver is UTC−7 in winter, the US Mountain zone, and the smallest of the four continental US zones by population. Arizona, in the same zone, does not change its clocks, so for half the year Denver and Phoenix are an hour apart.

Los Angeles. Los Angeles is UTC−8 in winter and UTC−7 from March to November. California voted in 2018 to move to permanent daylight saving and has not been able to: the change needs an act of Congress, which has not come.

Anchorage. Alaska is UTC−9 in winter, one hour behind the US Pacific coast, and covers a longitude range that would justify four zones. The state consolidated into one in 1983 so that Anchorage business hours would overlap with the rest of the country.

Honolulu. Hawaii is UTC−10 and does not change its clocks, so it drifts an hour further from the mainland every March. It is the furthest behind of any populated US zone, and the overlap with a European working day is essentially nil.

Moscow. Russia stopped changing its clocks in 2014 after two years on permanent summer time, settling Moscow at UTC+3. It is the only capital in this list whose country spans eleven time zones, and "Moscow time" is used for railway timetables across all of them.

The same pair from the other end

This page reads the difference as Russia against the United States. Russia to the United States states the same gap the other way round, which is the one to send someone if they are the one doing the travelling.

Other country pairs

Every the United States pair · All country pairs · City pairs