Daylight saving time changes in Delaware, United States

Delaware uses the IANA time zone identifier America/New_York. The current local offset is UTC-4 / EDT.

Best Time to Call Delaware

Business hours in Delaware (9 AM-5 PM local time) fall at these local times elsewhere:

• Sao Paulo: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM ( Convenient)
• Frankfurt: 3:00 PM - 11:00 PM ( Partial overlap)
• Johannesburg: 3:00 PM - 11:00 PM ( Partial overlap)
• Singapore: 9:00 PM - 5:00 AM (next day) ( Partial overlap)
• Hong Kong: 9:00 PM - 5:00 AM (next day) ( Partial overlap)
• Istanbul: 4:00 PM - 12:00 AM (next day) ( Partial overlap)
• Auckland: 2:00 AM (next day) - 10:00 AM (next day) ( Outside normal hours)

Times shown reflect current UTC offsets and may shift by up to an hour around daylight saving transitions.

Current Time in Cities of Delaware, United States

About Time in Delaware

A Clever Legal Loophole, Not a Simple Vote

Delaware found a workaround to a federal rule that normally blocks states from adopting permanent Daylight Saving Time on their own. Senate Bill 73, sponsored by then Senator David McBride, passed the state Senate 17 to 4 on June 12, 2019, passed the House 35 to 5, and was signed into law by Governor John Carney on August 12, 2019.

The law does not simply declare permanent Daylight Saving Time, since federal law normally does not allow that. Instead it uses two separate provisions of the federal Uniform Time Act at once. First, it directs Delaware's governor to ask the U.S. Secretary of Transportation to redefine Delaware's time zone entirely, moving it into what the law calls the Atlantic standard time zone, one hour ahead of Eastern Standard Time. Second, once that redefinition happens, the same law immediately exercises Delaware's separate right to opt out of seasonal clock changes within that new zone. The two moves combined produce exactly the same clock time Delaware already keeps for eight months of the year under Eastern Daylight Time, just made permanent rather than seasonal.

The catch is that none of it activates on its own. The law only takes effect once Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland each pass matching legislation requesting the same Atlantic time zone redesignation for themselves. As of the most recent tracking, none of the three neighboring states had completed that step, leaving Delaware's fully signed 2019 law sitting dormant, ready to activate the moment its neighbors catch up.

One of Nineteen States Waiting on the Same Signal

Delaware is not alone in having already done its own part of the paperwork. According to the Congressional Research Service, nineteen states, including Delaware, Florida, Tennessee, and Washington among others, have each enacted their own legislation that would immediately implement permanent Daylight Saving Time the moment Congress grants states that authority, which under current federal law it has not yet done.

What sets Delaware apart within that group of nineteen is the extra condition it built into its own law, tying activation not just to congressional action but specifically to three named neighboring states passing matching bills of their own. Delaware effectively wrote a two part lock into its statute, one federal and one regional, either of which alone would not be enough to change a single Delaware clock.

Frequently Asked Questions