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Current time in Toronto

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Toronto is on Eastern Time – EST (UTC−5) in winter, EDT (UTC−4) in summer – and shows exactly the same time as New York.

Now in effect
EST or EDT
Next clock change
Second Sunday in March
Countdown
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Airports
YYZ · YTZ

What time zone is Toronto in?

Toronto keeps Eastern Time under Ontario's Time Act: in Canada, clock time is a provincial matter, not a federal one. The province follows the same daylight-saving dates as the United States, so Toronto and New York have shown identical times since April 1975 – the live Eastern Time clock on our homepage is right for both.

The City of Toronto is a single-tier municipality, so it belongs to no county or regional municipality. Two airports serve it: YYZ, Toronto Pearson International, Canada's busiest airport, which actually lies in neighbouring Mississauga; and YTZ, Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, on the Toronto Islands just off downtown.

Toronto at a glance
ItemValue
MunicipalityCity of Toronto, Ontario (single-tier)
Time zoneEastern (America/Toronto)
Winter / summerEST, UTC−5 / EDT, UTC−4
AirportsYYZ Pearson · YTZ Billy Bishop
Coordinates43.65°N, 79.38°W
Solar noon12:01–12:32 PM EST · 1:01–1:27 PM EDT

Which places use the America/Toronto time zone?

Every phone, server and calendar app gets its rules from the IANA Time Zone Database, and America/Toronto is the entry it labels "Eastern – ON & QC (most areas)". One zone thus covers most of Ontario and most of Quebec, including Ottawa and Montreal. It also serves the Bahamas, whose clocks have matched Toronto's since 1970. Several older names now simply point to it: America/Montreal, America/Thunder_Bay, America/Nipigon, America/Nassau and the legacy Canada/Eastern.

Ontario's exceptions are all in the far northwest. The Time Act puts the part of the province west of 90°W – Kenora, Dryden, Fort Frances – on Central Time, and Atikokan has kept EST all year for decades. Since November 1, 2026, Ontario Regulation 333/26 keeps the area west of 90°W on UTC−5 all year, matching Manitoba's move to year-round UTC−5 – so in winter Kenora now shows the same time as Toronto. For the rest of Ontario, Toronto included, clocks fell back as usual on November 1, 2026. The Eastern Time in Canada guide maps every provincial exception.

How did a Toronto lecture lead to world time zones?

Standard time has a Toronto address. Sandford Fleming, a Scottish-born railway engineer who had helped found the Canadian Institute in Toronto in 1849, spent years arguing that the patchwork of local times was unworkable. On February 8, 1879, he read two papers to the Institute – "Time-reckoning" and "Longitude and Time-reckoning" – proposing one universal day for the whole world, divided into 24 zones each 15° of longitude wide, with every clock in a zone showing the same time.

The British government circulated his papers to 18 countries that June, and the idea fed the 1884 International Meridian Conference in Washington. A provincial plaque in downtown Toronto marks the city as the birthplace of standard time. Today's Eastern Time is one of those 15° zones, centred on 75°W; the history of Eastern Time follows the rest of the story.

  1. 1876 – After missing a train in Ireland because a timetable printed p.m. for a.m., Fleming proposes a single 24-hour world clock.
  2. 1879 – His Toronto papers tie the 24-zone system to the meridian opposite Greenwich.
  3. November 18, 1883 – North American railways adopt standard time zones.
  4. 1884 – The Washington conference adopts Greenwich as the prime meridian and a universal day, but leaves zones to each country.

Sunrise and sunset in Toronto today

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Sunset
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Solar noon
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Day length
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Toronto sun times on the solstices and equinoxes (local clock time, ±2 min)
DateSunriseSunsetSolar noonDaylight
Dec 21, 2026 (EST)7:48 AM4:44 PM12:16 PM8h 56m
Mar 20, 2027 (EDT)7:21 AM7:30 PM1:25 PM12h 09m
Jun 21, 2027 (EDT)5:36 AM9:03 PM1:19 PM15h 27m
Sep 23, 2027 (EDT)7:06 AM7:13 PM1:10 PM12h 07m

Toronto lies at 79.38°W, 4.4° west of the 75°W meridian, so its sun runs about 17½ minutes behind the clock: solar noon is 12:16 PM at the winter solstice and 1:19 PM, with DST, in June. Daylight swings by 6 hours 31 minutes over the year, and between November 8, 2026 and January 9, 2027 the sun sets before 5:00 PM every day, bottoming out at 4:41 PM around December 10.

DST moves the June sunrise from 4:36 AM to 5:36 AM and the latest sunset to about 9:03 PM. In return, the year's latest sunrises come just before clocks fall back – 8:00 AM on November 6, 2027 – rather than in January, when the sun is up by about 7:51 AM.

Will Ontario make daylight saving time permanent?

It has the law ready but has not switched it on. The Time Amendment Act, 2020 – Bill 214, a private member's bill from MPP Jeremy Roberts – passed unanimously and received Royal Assent on November 30, 2020. It would make today's daylight time Ontario's time all year, but it only takes effect on a date set by proclamation, and the government said it would act only together with neighbouring Quebec and New York. As of November 2026 it has not been proclaimed.

The two partners are moving at different speeds. On October 28, 2026, Quebec's government announced it would table a bill to end clock changes but had not yet chosen between year-round standard or daylight time. New York cannot adopt permanent daylight time on its own under US federal law; the federal Sunshine Protection Act passed the US House 308–117 on July 14, 2026 and, as of November 2026, sits with the Senate Commerce Committee without a vote. Track the dates on our daylight saving time page.

What permanent EDT would mean in Toronto (computed): latest sunrise about 8:51 AM in early January, roughly 112 mornings a year with sunrise at 8:00 AM or later, and the earliest sunset moving from 4:41 PM to 5:41 PM. See EST vs EDT for how the two offsets differ.

Which nearby cities share Toronto's time?

  • Mississauga – 22 km (14 mi) west in Peel Region, home of Pearson airport; same clock, sun about a minute later.
  • Hamilton – 59 km (37 mi) southwest at the western end of Lake Ontario; solar noon about 2 minutes later than Toronto's.
  • Buffalo, New York – 95 km (59 mi) southeast across the lake, in Erie County. A different country and a different time law, but the same clock all year, because Ontario and New York change on the same nights.

For other cities in the zone, see the Eastern Time cities hub.

  • Toronto and neighbours, all on Eastern Time

Frequently asked questions

Is Toronto time the same as New York time?

Yes. Toronto and New York have shown identical clock times since April 1975: both use EST (UTC−5) in winter and EDT (UTC−4) in summer and change on the same nights at 2:00 AM.

What time is it in Toronto when it is noon in Vancouver?

British Columbia stopped changing its clocks in 2026 and now stays on UTC−7 all year. So noon in Vancouver is 2:00 PM in Toronto while Toronto is on EST (November to March) and 3:00 PM while Toronto is on EDT (March to November).

What time zone is Thunder Bay in?

Eastern Time, like Toronto. The old IANA name America/Thunder_Bay is now simply an alias of America/Toronto.

What does Canada/Eastern mean in software settings?

It is a legacy alias kept for backward compatibility. In the IANA database Canada/Eastern points to America/Toronto, so it gives exactly the same times.

When do Toronto's clocks change in 2027?

At 2:00 AM on Sunday, March 14, 2027 (spring forward to EDT) and at 2:00 AM on Sunday, November 7, 2027 (fall back to EST), the same nights as in the United States.

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