diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.21.0.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.21.0.txt
index 273cbd8357f85..96e21852e9189 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.21.0.txt
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.21.0.txt
@@ -132,7 +132,6 @@ Other Enhancements
 - :func:`DataFrame.items` and :func:`Series.items` is now present in both Python 2 and 3 and is lazy in all cases (:issue:`13918`, :issue:`17213`)
 
 
-
 .. _whatsnew_0210.api_breaking:
 
 Backwards incompatible API changes
@@ -328,6 +327,10 @@ Deprecations
 
 - ``pd.options.html.border`` has been deprecated in favor of ``pd.options.display.html.border`` (:issue:`15793`).
 
+
+- :func: `to_datetime` now takes ``tz`` keyword argument, ``utc`` argument is deprecated (:issue:`13712`)
+
+
 .. _whatsnew_0210.prior_deprecations:
 
 Removal of prior version deprecations/changes
diff --git a/pandas/core/tools/datetimes.py b/pandas/core/tools/datetimes.py
index c0f234a36803d..dc388fe4e1a55 100644
--- a/pandas/core/tools/datetimes.py
+++ b/pandas/core/tools/datetimes.py
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
     ABCDataFrame, ABCDateOffset)
 from pandas.core.dtypes.missing import notna
 from pandas.core import algorithms
+from pandas.util._decorators import deprecate_kwarg
 
 import pandas.compat as compat
 
@@ -182,9 +183,12 @@ def _guess_datetime_format_for_array(arr, **kwargs):
         return _guess_datetime_format(arr[non_nan_elements[0]], **kwargs)
 
 
+@deprecate_kwarg(old_arg_name='utc', new_arg_name='tz',
+                 mapping={True: 'UTC'})
 def to_datetime(arg, errors='raise', dayfirst=False, yearfirst=False,
-                utc=None, box=True, format=None, exact=True,
-                unit=None, infer_datetime_format=False, origin='unix'):
+                box=True, format=None, exact=True,
+                unit=None, infer_datetime_format=False, origin='unix',
+                tz=None):
     """
     Convert argument to datetime.
 
@@ -223,6 +227,14 @@ def to_datetime(arg, errors='raise', dayfirst=False, yearfirst=False,
     utc : boolean, default None
         Return UTC DatetimeIndex if True (converting any tz-aware
         datetime.datetime objects as well).
+
+        .. deprecated: 0.21.0
+
+    tz : pytz.timezone or dateutil.tz.tzfile, default None
+        Define the timezone.
+
+        .. versionadded: 0.21.0
+
     box : boolean, default True
 
         - If True returns a DatetimeIndex
@@ -343,8 +355,6 @@ def to_datetime(arg, errors='raise', dayfirst=False, yearfirst=False,
     """
     from pandas.core.indexes.datetimes import DatetimeIndex
 
-    tz = 'utc' if utc else None
-
     def _convert_listlike(arg, box, format, name=None, tz=tz):
 
         if isinstance(arg, (list, tuple)):
@@ -354,8 +364,8 @@ def _convert_listlike(arg, box, format, name=None, tz=tz):
         if is_datetime64tz_dtype(arg):
             if not isinstance(arg, DatetimeIndex):
                 return DatetimeIndex(arg, tz=tz, name=name)
-            if utc:
-                arg = arg.tz_convert(None).tz_localize('UTC')
+            if tz:
+                arg = arg.tz_convert(None).tz_localize(tz)
             return arg
 
         elif is_datetime64_ns_dtype(arg):
@@ -431,6 +441,10 @@ def _convert_listlike(arg, box, format, name=None, tz=tz):
                             result = arg
 
             if result is None and (format is None or infer_datetime_format):
+                if tz == 'utc' or tz == 'UTC':
+                    utc = True
+                else:
+                    utc = False
                 result = tslib.array_to_datetime(
                     arg,
                     errors=errors,
diff --git a/pandas/tests/indexes/datetimes/test_tools.py b/pandas/tests/indexes/datetimes/test_tools.py
index 50669ee357bbd..98ce7e32cc4b9 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/indexes/datetimes/test_tools.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/indexes/datetimes/test_tools.py
@@ -270,6 +270,23 @@ def test_to_datetime_utc_is_true(self):
         expected = pd.DatetimeIndex(data=date_range)
         tm.assert_index_equal(result, expected)
 
+    def test_to_datetime_tz_kw(self):
+        # See gh-13712
+        for tz in [None, 'US/Eastern', 'Asia/Tokyo', 'UTC']:
+            data = ['20140101 000000', '20140102 000000', '20140103 000000']
+            start = pd.Timestamp(data[0], tz=tz)
+            end = pd.Timestamp(data[-1], tz=tz)
+            date_range = pd.bdate_range(start, end)
+
+            result = pd.to_datetime(data, format='%Y%m%d %H%M%S', tz=tz)
+            expected = pd.DatetimeIndex(data=date_range)
+            tm.assert_numpy_array_equal(result.values, expected.values)
+
+            if result.tz is None:
+                assert expected.tz is None
+            else:
+                assert result.tz.zone == expected.tz.zone
+
     def test_to_datetime_tz_psycopg2(self):
 
         # xref 8260