Time in Florida

Map of Florida time zones. Counties in red follow central time. Counties in yellow follow eastern time. Counties with a checkerboard pattern have areas that follow both time zones.
Enterin Gulf County / Entering Eastern Time Zone

Florida is divided into two time zones, with most of state in the Eastern Time Zone. Parts of the Florida panhandle in northwest Florida lies in the Central Time Zone. The entire state observes daylight saving time.

The areas that observe Central Time include:

The 2010 population of all counties that are entirely in the Central Time Zone was 995,882 out of a total state population of 18,801,310 at that time, or 5.3% of the total state population.

Proposed shift to Daylight Saving Time year-round (Sunshine Protection Act)

In 2018, the Florida Legislature approved, and the governor signed, the "Sunshine Protection Act" (House Bill 1013), which would permanently move Florida to Daylight Saving Time. A related bill, Senate Bill 858, also proposed unifying the time zones of the Panhandle counties to the rest of the state, moving the ten counties that are within the Central Time Zone to the Eastern Time Zone, but this bill was not passed. A change to year-round Daylight Saving Time would require approval from the United States Department of Transportation as well as the United States Congress.

tz database

The tz database version 2026f contains two time zones for Florida.

CC Coordinates TZ Comments UTC offset UTC offset DST Notes
US+415100−0873900
America/Chicago
Central (most areas)−06:00−05:00
US+404251−0740023
America/New_York
Eastern (most areas)−05:00−04:00

References

  1. ↑ "Florida House of Representatives: HB 1013" (PDF). Florida House of Representatives. January 24, 2018. Retrieved January 25, 2018.
  2. ↑ Lemongello, Steven. "Florida's year-round daylight saving time law on hold in Congress". OrlandoSentinel.com. Retrieved 2019-03-12.
  3. ↑ "Florida Senate - 2018: CS for SB 858" (PDF). Florida Senate. January 24, 2018. Retrieved January 25, 2018.
  4. ↑ "Senate Bill 858 (2018) - The Florida Senate". www.flsenate.gov. Retrieved 2019-03-12.
  5. ↑ Mary Ellen Klas (January 24, 2018). "Should Florida keep Daylight Saving Time all year? It could happen". Miami Herald. The McClatchy Company. Retrieved January 25, 2018.
  6. ↑ Lemongello, Steven. "Florida's year-round daylight saving time law on hold in Congress". OrlandoSentinel.com. Retrieved 2019-03-12.