Airport in Mississippi
Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport (JAN / KJAN) is a regional airport serving Mississippi directly.
Current local time at the airport is 18:32:37.
Daylight saving time changes in Mississippi, United States
Mississippi uses the IANA time zone identifier America/Chicago. The current local offset is UTC-5 / CDT.
Next change: November 1, 2026
Clock moves back from 02:00 to 01:00 local time.
Best Time to Call Mississippi
Business hours in Mississippi (9 AM-5 PM local time) fall at these local times elsewhere:
- Sao Paulo: 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM ( Convenient)
- Frankfurt: 4:00 PM - 12:00 AM (next day) ( Partial overlap)
- Johannesburg: 4:00 PM - 12:00 AM (next day) ( Partial overlap)
- Singapore: 10:00 PM - 6:00 AM (next day) ( Outside normal hours)
- Hong Kong: 10:00 PM - 6:00 AM (next day) ( Outside normal hours)
- Istanbul: 5:00 PM - 1:00 AM (next day) ( Partial overlap)
- Auckland: 3:00 AM (next day) - 11:00 AM (next day) ( Outside normal hours)
Times shown reflect current UTC offsets and may shift by up to an hour around daylight saving transitions.
Time Difference from Mississippi
Compare time in Mississippi with major cities worldwide.
Current Time in Cities of Mississippi, United States
About Time in Mississippi
The State Every Eclipse Keeps Missing
Mississippi has sat surrounded by major solar eclipses for nearly a decade without ever once landing inside the path of totality itself. The 2017 total eclipse crossed Missouri, Tennessee, and Georgia. An annular eclipse swept through in October 2023. The 2024 total eclipse cut through Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and half a dozen other states. Mississippi touched none of them directly.
Chris Sirola, an astronomy and physics professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, put it plainly ahead of the 2024 event: nobody in Mississippi would see a total solar eclipse that day, no matter where in the state they stood. Residents in the state's northwestern corner got the deepest partial coverage, with central Arkansas being the closest place to actually experience full totality. Sirola noted the irony directly, calling 2024 the third major solar eclipse in under eight years for the region, while Mississippi itself kept landing just outside the line each time.
The wait is a long one. According to Sirola, the next total solar eclipse actually visible from Mississippi will not arrive until 2045, meaning the state will have gone nearly three decades watching its neighbors get eclipsed on both sides without ever getting its own turn.
A Law Passed Almost Unanimously, Waiting on Washington
When Mississippi lawmakers took up permanent Daylight Saving Time in 2021, the vote was about as lopsided as legislation gets. House Bill 1062 passed the Mississippi House 116 to 1 on February 10, cleared the Senate 51 to 0 on March 10, and was signed into law on March 17, 2021.
The law does nothing on its own. It is written to activate only if Congress amends the federal Uniform Time Act to let states adopt Daylight Saving Time permanently, something that still has not happened. Mississippi's own U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith joined Florida Senator Marco Rubio that same month to co-sponsor the federal Sunshine Protection Act, explicitly citing benefits for the state's agricultural sector as a reason to push the change at the national level.
Five years later, lawmakers tried to simply update the law's effective date to July 1, 2026, through a new bill, House Bill 279, using identical language to the original. That update itself died in committee on February 3, 2026. Mississippi's original 2021 law remains on the books exactly as written, still waiting on the same federal action it was waiting on the day it passed.
Frequently Asked Questions
What time zone is Mississippi in?
The whole of Mississippi uses the America/Chicago time zone (CDT). Local time is 5 hours behind UTC (UTC-5), and all cities in the region show the same time.
Is the time in Mississippi the same as in Washington?
No. Jackson, the main city of Mississippi, is currently 1 hour behind Washington, the capital of United States.
Do clocks change in Mississippi?
Yes. The next clock change in Mississippi is on November 1, 2026, when clocks move back from 02:00 to 01:00 local time.
What is the main city of Mississippi?
Jackson is the main city of Mississippi, with a population of about 153,701. The time, sunrise and sunset shown on this page are based on Jackson.
Which airport is closest to Jackson?
Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport (JAN) serves Jackson directly. Flight arrival and departure times there are shown in local time.
Beyond the Clock
What Is Stardate and How Star Trek Invented Its Own Fictional Time System
A stardate is the fictional timekeeping system Star Trek's Starfleet uses instead of the Gregorian calendar, heard from the show's very first broadcast episode in September 1966, "Captain's log, star date 1513.1," and reworked at least three separate times since, in ways the franchise's own
Why We Say “Quarter Past” and “Half Past” Instead of Just Saying the Minutes
By the year 1500, the clock at Wells Cathedral in England was already striking the quarter-hours for the whole town to hear. What it could not do was show a minute. There was no minute hand on any clock anywhere, because no clock mechanism was
Why Clocks Run Clockwise: The Sundial Origin of “Clockwise”
Nothing about the universe requires a clock's hands to sweep the way they do. There's no physical law dictating that "forward" in time should move to the right at the top of a dial. The direction is a historical accident, frozen into every watch, wall
Why the Hour Was Originally a Different Length in Summer and Winter
For most of recorded history, an hour was not a fixed amount of time. It was a fraction, one twelfth of however long daylight happened to last that day. In June that fraction stretched past 80 modern minutes. In December it shrank to barely 40.
When Do the Clocks Change in 2026: US, UK, and EU Dates
The clocks fall back twice this autumn on the two sides of the Atlantic, one week apart. The United Kingdom and every European Union country end summer time on Sunday, October 25, 2026. The United States and most of Canada end daylight saving time on
What Time Zone Is Mexico In and Why It Stopped Changing Its Clocks
Mexico uses four time zones, and since October 30, 2022, most of the country keeps the same time all year. Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey stay at UTC−6 in January and in July. Cancún stays at UTC−5, Los Cabos and Mazatlán at UTC−7. The only
Why Japan Never Adopted Daylight Saving Time
The premise behind that headline needs a small correction before the story even starts. Japan did try daylight saving time, for four full years, complete with clocks moving forward and back on a fixed schedule. What Japan never did was choose it. The distinction between
What Time Zone Is Kiribati In: The Country Furthest Ahead in Time
For most of the 20th century, Kiribati wasn't ahead of anyone. Parts of it were among the last places on Earth to see each new day, not the first. That changed in 1995 through a single, deliberate act of redrawing the map, and the country
Time Tools
Quick access to timers, stopwatch, world clock and time zone tools.
Time Guides
Read useful guides about time zones, calendars, finance and astronomy.
