Eastern Time cities
Live clocks and local time facts for every major city in the zone.
Live · ET · Detroit, Michigan
Current time in Detroit
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Detroit runs on Eastern Time – EST (UTC−5) in winter, EDT (UTC−4) in summer – even though, by longitude, it lies on the Central side of the zone's solar midline.
- Now in effect
- EST or EDT
- Next clock change
- Second Sunday in March
- Countdown
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- Sun behind the 75°W clock
- ≈ 32 minutes
What time zone is Detroit in?
Detroit, the seat of Wayne County, keeps Eastern Time, and so does the entire Lower Peninsula of Michigan. The state's only exceptions are four Upper Peninsula counties on the Wisconsin border – Gogebic, Iron, Dickinson and Menominee – which moved to Central Time in 1973; the Michigan time zone page maps them.
The main airport, DTW (Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport), is in Romulus, about 29 km (18 mi) southwest of downtown, and is a Delta Air Lines hub. Its departure boards use the same clock as the live Eastern Time clock at the top of our homepage.
Your phone may list the city under its own IANA zone, America/Detroit. Since April 1975 it has matched America/New_York second for second; the separate entry exists only because Michigan's clocks disagreed with New York's for much of the 20th century – a story told further down.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| County | Wayne County, Michigan |
| Time zone | Eastern (America/Detroit) |
| Winter / summer | EST, UTC−5 / EDT, UTC−4 |
| Airport | DTW, in Romulus |
| Coordinates | 42.33°N, 83.05°W |
| Solar noon | 12:16–12:46 PM EST · 1:16–1:41 PM EDT |
Why does the sun set so late in Detroit?
Standard time was built on meridians 15° apart: 75°W for Eastern, 90°W for Central. Halfway between them, at 82.5°W, the sun is exactly 30 minutes off both clocks. Detroit, at 83.05°W, lies just west of that midpoint – geographically it is nearer the Central meridian than the Eastern one. The sun reaches its highest point here about 32 minutes after it does on 75°W: around 12:30 PM EST at the winter solstice and 1:34 PM EDT at the summer solstice.
A neat comparison is Boston. It sits at 42.36°N, almost exactly Detroit's latitude, and uses the same clock, but it is 12° further east, so everything happens about 48 minutes earlier there. On June 21, 2027 the sun sets at 8:25 PM in Boston and at 9:12 PM in Detroit; on December 21, at 4:15 PM in Boston and 5:03 PM in Detroit.
Detroit is not the zone's extreme – Atlanta, at 84.39°W, runs later still – but it is one of the large ET cities whose clock is furthest ahead of its sun.
Sunrise and sunset in Detroit today
- Sunrise
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- Sunset
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- Solar noon
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- Day length
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How daylight saving time stretches Detroit's evenings
| Date | Clock | Sunrise | Sunset | Solar noon | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 21, 2026 | EST | 7:58 AM | 5:03 PM | 12:30 PM | 9h 05m |
| Mar 20, 2027 | EDT | 7:36 AM | 7:44 PM | 1:40 PM | 12h 08m |
| Jun 21, 2027 | EDT | 5:56 AM | 9:12 PM | 1:34 PM | 15h 16m |
| Sep 23, 2027 | EDT | 7:20 AM | 7:28 PM | 1:25 PM | 12h 08m |
Daylight time stacks an extra hour on top of the late longitude. In 2027 the sun sets at or after 9:00 PM on 57 evenings, from late May to late July, peaking at about 9:13 PM in the last week of June. The cost shows up at the other end of the season: the latest sunrise of the year comes just before clocks fall back – about 8:04 AM on October 31, 2026 and 8:11 AM on November 6, 2027 – later than any midwinter sunrise on standard time, which tops out near 8:01 AM in early January.
That is why year-round daylight time would hit Detroit harder than most of the zone. Computed for this location, permanent EDT would put the latest sunrise around 9:01 AM, with about 14 mornings a year when the sun is not up until after 9:00 AM. Compare Miami, where the same change would push the latest sunrise only to about 8:09 AM. Permanent EST would do the opposite: June sunrises near 4:55 AM and summer sunsets no later than about 8:13 PM. The daylight saving time guide covers the federal rules behind both options.
Was Detroit ever on Central Time?
Yes – and before that, on its own sun time, about 28 minutes ahead of Central. According to historian Derek Howse, whose account is preserved in the notes of the IANA tz database, Detroit's council ordered clocks set back to Central Standard Time in 1900. Half the city obeyed and half refused; the order was rescinded, and a mocking offer to put a sundial in front of City Hall was referred to the Committee on Sewers. Central Time was finally adopted by city vote in 1905.
Ten years later, on May 15, 1915, Detroit moved to Eastern Time to line up with New York. Daylight saving brought a second round of fights: Michigan exempted itself under the 1966 Uniform Time Act, voters upheld the exemption in a November 1968 referendum, and Detroit spent the summers of 1969–1972 an hour behind New York until a 1972 ballot proposal restored DST. More on the national picture is in the history of Eastern Time.
| Period | Detroit time |
|---|---|
| Until 1905 | Local mean time, UTC−5:32:11 |
| 1905–1915 | Central Standard Time, UTC−6 |
| May 15, 1915 | Switch to Eastern, UTC−5 |
| 1946–1966 | Standard time all year, except summer 1948 |
| 1967 | DST starts June 14, six weeks after the rest of the US |
| 1969–1972 | No DST: EST all summer |
| 1973–1974 | US rules, incl. the January 1974 energy-crisis DST |
| 1975 | DST starts April 27, not February 23 |
| Since then | Identical to New York |
Is Windsor on the same time as Detroit?
Yes. Windsor, Ontario, follows Ontario's Eastern Time (IANA America/Toronto) and changes clocks on the same nights, so the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel never cross a time line. The geographic surprise is direction: the Detroit River runs roughly east–west here, and downtown Windsor lies slightly south of downtown Detroit – Canada below the United States. For more on the province, see time in Toronto.
- Ann Arbor – 58 km (36 mi) west, seat of Washtenaw County; its sun runs about 3 minutes behind Detroit's.
- Toledo, Ohio – 86 km (53 mi) southwest at the western tip of Lake Erie; same Eastern clock, solar noon about 2 minutes later.
More cities on this clock are listed on the Eastern Time cities hub.
- Detroit and neighbours, all on Eastern Time
Frequently asked questions
Is Detroit on the same time as Chicago?
No. Chicago is on Central Time, so it is always one hour behind Detroit: 9:00 AM in Detroit is 8:00 AM in Chicago, in winter and in summer.
Do Grand Rapids and Lansing use Detroit time?
Yes. The whole Lower Peninsula and most of the Upper Peninsula use Eastern Time. Only Gogebic, Iron, Dickinson and Menominee counties, on the Wisconsin border, use Central Time.
What time is it in Detroit when it is 9:00 AM in London?
Usually 4:00 AM, because London is five hours ahead. During the few weeks when Europe and North America have not both changed their clocks (March 14–28 and October 31–November 7, 2027) the gap is four hours, so 9:00 AM in London is 5:00 AM in Detroit.
Does Detroit observe daylight saving time?
Yes, every year since 1973. Clocks spring forward on the second Sunday in March and fall back on the first Sunday in November; in 2027 that is March 14 and November 7.
What is Detroit's UTC offset?
−05:00 in winter (EST) and −04:00 in summer (EDT). The panel at the top of this page shows which one is in force right now.
Explore
Michigan time zones
The four Upper Peninsula counties on Central Time, and why they switched.
Time in Toronto
Ontario's capital, the IANA zone Windsor uses, and the man who proposed standard time.
History of Eastern Time
From railway time in 1883 to today's DST rule.