How to use the Time Zone Converter
- Choose the date and the time, and the time zone they belong to. Your own zone is selected automatically, and Now fills in the current time.
- See the same moment in every city on your list, with any change of day, the UTC offset and whether daylight saving time is in effect.
- Add cities with the search box (a city, a country or an abbreviation such as PST) and remove the ones you do not need. Your list is saved on this device.
- Use the meeting planner to find hours inside everyone’s working day, then click a column to select that time.
Features
- Daylight saving time handled automatically for any date
- Search every IANA time zone by city, country or abbreviation
- Your list of cities is remembered on this device
- Meeting planner that highlights shared working hours
- Warnings for skipped and repeated times at clock changes
- 12-hour or 24-hour clock, and copy all times for an invite
How time zones work
Every time zone is defined by its offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the reference clock kept by atomic clocks around the world. New York in winter is UTC−5, Karachi is UTC+5 and Tokyo is UTC+9. Not every offset is a whole hour: India uses UTC+5:30, Nepal UTC+5:45 and Newfoundland UTC−3:30. Zones follow political borders rather than straight lines, which is why all of China keeps one time while the continental United States has four.
Because governments change their rules, this converter uses the IANA time zone database built into your browser. Its zones are named after a major city, such as Asia/Karachi or America/Chicago, and they record each region’s history of offsets and daylight saving rules, so past and future dates come out right.
Daylight saving time
Many countries move their clocks forward an hour in summer. The United States switches on the second Sunday in March and back on the first Sunday in November. The European Union switches on the last Sundays of March and October. In the southern hemisphere the seasons are reversed, so Sydney’s summer time runs from October to April. Pakistan, India, China, Japan and most of Africa do not change their clocks at all.
Because the US and Europe change on different dates, the gap between them shifts for a few weeks each year. In March 2026, US clocks moved forward on March 8 and European clocks on March 29, so for those three weeks New York was four hours behind London instead of the usual five. Recurring meetings set in one city’s time move for everyone else during those weeks.
Worked example
A call set for 9:00 AM in New York on Monday, 12 January 2026 happens at 14:00 UTC, because New York is on standard time (UTC−5). That is 2:00 PM in London, 7:00 PM in Karachi, 7:30 PM in New Delhi and 11:00 PM in Tokyo. The same call in July would be at 13:00 UTC, because New York would then be on daylight time.
Common offsets
| City | Standard time | Daylight time |
|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles | UTC−8 | UTC−7 |
| New York | UTC−5 | UTC−4 |
| London | UTC+0 | UTC+1 |
| Paris, Berlin | UTC+1 | UTC+2 |
| Dubai | UTC+4 | not observed |
| Karachi | UTC+5 | not observed |
| New Delhi | UTC+5:30 | not observed |
| Sydney | UTC+10 | UTC+11 |
Tips for scheduling across zones
- Abbreviations are ambiguous: IST can mean India, Ireland or Israel, and CST can mean US Central or China. Name a city instead.
- Check the weekend. The UAE moved to a Saturday–Sunday weekend in 2022, while Saudi Arabia keeps Friday and Saturday.
- Rotate inconvenient slots so the same team is not always joining at night.
- Write invites with the city and the offset, for example “3:00 PM London (UTC+1)”. The Copy times button does this for you.
For a live dashboard of current times, use the World Clock. To turn a moment into a Unix timestamp for software, try the Unix Timestamp Converter.
Frequently asked questions
Does the converter handle daylight saving time?
Yes. It uses the time zone database in your browser, which knows when each region changes its clocks, so any date in the past or future is converted with the right offset.
What is the difference between UTC and GMT?
For everyday scheduling they show the same time. UTC is the precise atomic time standard, while GMT is the time zone used in the UK in winter and in some West African countries all year.
Why does a city show “+1 day” or “−1 day”?
The moment you picked falls on a different calendar date there. For example, 9:00 PM in New York is already the next morning in Tokyo.
Why does the tool say a time does not exist?
When clocks spring forward, an hour is skipped. In New York, for example, 2:30 AM never happens on the day daylight saving time starts. The converter shows the equivalent moment just after the change.
Is my list of cities saved?
Yes, in your browser’s local storage on this device only. Nothing is sent to a server, and Reset list restores the default cities.