[after reading the very first code example] There is a better way to write it: from datetime import datetime from pytz import timezone, utc EST = "US/E

[after reading the very first code example] There is a better way to write it: from datetime import datetime from pytz import timezone, utc EST = "US/Eastern" now = datetime.utcnow().replace(tzinfo=utc) # now in UTC return now.astimezone(timezone(EST)) # now in EST There is no DST transitions in UTC so localize()/normalize() are unnecessary here. The code still is not pretty and error-prone in general but there are already libraries that wrap it into easy to use interface e.g., times, arrow. They are better target to compare itself against.