Meeting Planner
Find overlap windows across cities
Best Meeting Window
8 AM — 3 PM
7 overlapping hours (local time of first city)
Quick Facts
- •US-Europe overlap: ~6 hours (EST business hours)
- •US-Asia overlap: ~2–3 hours (early morning US)
- •Rotate meeting times for fairness
Planning Meetings Across Time Zones
Finding a meeting time that works for participants in different time zones is one of the biggest challenges of global collaboration. The meeting planner shows overlapping business hours (8 AM – 8 PM) across selected cities, helping you find windows where everyone is available during reasonable hours.
Tips for Global Teams
When no perfect overlap exists, rotate meeting times to share the burden fairly. Record meetings for those who can't attend live. Use asynchronous communication tools for non-urgent discussions. Consider that 'business hours' may differ by culture — some countries have late lunch breaks or different work schedules.
Understanding the meeting planner
Scheduling across time zones fails for two reasons: people forget that some regions do not observe daylight saving, and they schedule inside someone's evening because the offset looked workable on paper. The reliable approach is to convert every participant's working hours into a single reference zone such as UTC and look for the overlap.
Worked examples
Finding overlap between London, New York and Bangalore
- 1Working hours 9:00 to 17:00 local. In UTC during northern summer: London is 08:00 to 16:00, New York is 13:00 to 21:00, Bangalore is 03:30 to 11:30.
- 2London and New York overlap 13:00 to 16:00 UTC.
- 3Bangalore ends at 11:30 UTC, so there is no three-way overlap in normal hours.
- 4Extending Bangalore to 18:30 local, which is 13:00 UTC, creates a one hour window.
13:00 to 14:00 UTC works, which is 14:00 London, 09:00 New York and 18:30 Bangalore.
Handling a date change with Sydney
- 1Sydney in January is UTC+11. A 16:00 UTC meeting is 03:00 the next day in Sydney.
- 2Shift earlier: 22:00 UTC on the previous day is 09:00 Sydney.
- 3For a San Francisco participant at UTC-8, 22:00 UTC is 14:00 the same day.
22:00 UTC suits both: 09:00 next day in Sydney and 14:00 in San Francisco.
Standard offsets for major business centres
| City | Standard | Daylight saving | Observes DST |
|---|---|---|---|
| London | UTC+0 | UTC+1 | Yes, late March to late October |
| Berlin / Paris | UTC+1 | UTC+2 | Yes, same dates as UK |
| New York | UTC-5 | UTC-4 | Yes, March to November |
| Chicago | UTC-6 | UTC-5 | Yes |
| Los Angeles | UTC-8 | UTC-7 | Yes |
| Bangalore / Mumbai | UTC+5:30 | n/a | No |
| Dubai | UTC+4 | n/a | No |
| Singapore | UTC+8 | n/a | No |
| Tokyo | UTC+9 | n/a | No |
| Sydney | UTC+10 | UTC+11 | Yes, October to April |
| São Paulo | UTC-3 | n/a | No, abolished in 2019 |
Overlap windows for common pairings
| Pair | Reasonable window | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| London and New York | 13:00 to 17:00 UTC | Four comfortable hours |
| London and India | 09:30 to 12:30 UTC | Afternoon in India |
| New York and India | 13:00 to 14:30 UTC | Tight, early US morning |
| London and Sydney | 07:00 to 09:00 UTC | Early UK, evening Sydney |
| US West Coast and Europe | 16:00 to 17:00 UTC | One hour only |
Practical tips
- •Send invitations from a calendar tool so each attendee sees their own local time. Typing a time into the description guarantees somebody miscalculates.
- •Southern hemisphere daylight saving runs opposite to the north, so the gap to Sydney changes twice a year by two hours in total.
- •Rotate the inconvenient slot between teams rather than always asking the same region to take the early call.
Frequently asked questions
More Time & World Tools
Related Articles
Understanding Time Zones: A Complete Guide
Everything you need to know about time zones, from their history to practical tips for scheduling across the globe.
Daylight Saving Time: Everything You Need to Know
Learn the history of daylight saving time, when clocks change worldwide, and why many want to end the practice.
This calculator is for educational and reference purposes only. Always verify critical calculations independently.