What is the time zone of Indiana?
Indiana is divided into two time zones. The largest part of Indiana, including the cities Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, is in the Eastern Time zone and observing daylight savings so there are two different clocks depending on the time of year.
Eastern Standard Time (EST): – 5:00 UTC/GMT (behind)
Eastern Daylight Time (EDT): – 4:00 UTC/GMT (behind)
The north west and south west tip of the state, covering 12 counties, are in the Central Time zone and also observing daylight savings so there are two different clocks depending on the time of year.
Central Standard Time (CST): – 6:00 UTC/GMT (behind)
Central Daylight Time (CDT): – 5:00 UTC/GMT (behind)
| Central Time |
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| Eastern Time |
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Zone boundary
The north west time zone boundary covers the counties of Lake, Porter, La Porte, Starke, Jasper and Newton. These counties follow the Central time due to its close proximity to the city of Chicago, IL.
The south west boundary is horizontal line above the countries Gibson, Posey, Warrick, Spencer, Vandenburgh and Perry. Evansville, the third largest city of Indiana, is also located in this area.
The official border is defined in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) §71.5. (b):
Daylight savings time (DST)
Indiana is using daylight savings as documented in the Uniform Time Act of 1966. During daylight savings the time changes from Standard time to Daylight time, so EST becomes EDT and CST becomes CDT depending on the location in the state.
It starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. In March the clock is moved forward from 02.00 am to 03.00 am (so you will lose an hour of sleep during the night). While in November it’s reversed as the clock is moved backward from 03.00 am to 02.00 am and you will gain an extra hour of sleep. One way of remembering the movement sequence is that clocks “spring forward and fall back”.
The total period of daylight savings lasts for 34 weeks which is about 65% of the year.
Indiana time news, bills and legislation
There is a continuous debate about which time should be applied. Several bills have been introduced to legalize daylight saving time as the year-round clock, whereas others try to align the time with bordering counties or states. The table below gives an overview of the latest bills in the state of Indiana.
| Date | Bill | Status/Action | Title/summary |
| No bills known |
Other US states
You can check out information and maps of other US states by clicking on the below links.