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Time Overlap Planner
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Add cities on the left, then click Find Best Time to see the overlap grid.
Finding a Time That Works for Everyone
The best meeting time is the hour when everyone is inside their working day. With a 9 AM to 6 PM day in each city, New York and London share 4 hours, 9 AM to 1 PM New York time, for most of 2026, while New York and Tokyo share none. Add up to 8 cities above and the planner marks every hour of the day that works for all of them.
Overlap Between Common City Pairs
Hours when both cities are inside a 9 AM to 6 PM workday in 2026, counted in whole hours as the planner does. The window is given in the first city's local time for July.
| Cities | January | July | July window (first city) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles + New York | 6 h | 6 h | 9 AM to 3 PM |
| New York + London | 4 h | 4 h | 9 AM to 1 PM |
| New York + Berlin or Paris | 3 h | 3 h | 9 AM to noon |
| Chicago + London | 3 h | 3 h | 9 AM to noon |
| Los Angeles + London | 1 h | 1 h | 9 to 10 AM |
| London + Dubai | 5 h | 6 h | 9 AM to 3 PM |
| London + Mumbai | 3 h | 4 h | 9 AM to 1 PM |
| London + Singapore | 1 h | 2 h | 9 to 11 AM |
| Los Angeles + Tokyo | 2 h | 1 h | 5 to 6 PM (9 to 10 AM next day in Tokyo) |
| Los Angeles + Sydney | 4 h | 2 h | 4 to 6 PM (9 to 11 AM next day in Sydney) |
| New York + Tokyo | None | None | n/a |
| New York + Mumbai | None | None | n/a |
| New York + London + Singapore | None | None | n/a |
Between March 8 and March 29, 2026 the US is on daylight time and Europe is not, so New York and London briefly share 5 hours and New York and Berlin 4.
How to Pick a Slot When Nothing Overlaps
- Stretch the edges first. Moving one side to an 8 AM start or a 7 PM finish often creates a single shared hour. Change the working hours above and click Find Best Time again.
- Put the discomfort on the smallest group. If four people are in New York and one is in Singapore, an 8 PM New York call (8 AM Singapore during US daylight time) inconveniences fewer people than the reverse.
- Rotate recurring meetings. Alternate between an early slot for one region and a late slot for the other so the same people are not always on the late call.
- Check the date, not just the time. For Asia and Australia the meeting often lands on the next calendar day, which can be a Saturday.
Daylight Saving Traps for Recurring Meetings
A weekly call fixed in New York time moves for everyone else when clocks change on different dates. Key 2026 and 2027 dates:
- US and Canada: March 8 to November 1, 2026; March 14 to November 7, 2027.
- EU and UK: March 29 to October 25, 2026; March 28 to October 31, 2027.
- Sydney and Melbourne: daylight time ends April 5 and starts October 4, 2026.
- No changes: Arizona, Hawaii, India, Singapore, Japan, China, the UAE and Mexico.
Calendar apps handle this if the event is created in a named time zone. Send invites from a calendar rather than writing "3 PM ET" in an email, and to check a single time use the time zone converter.
Method and sources. Local times come from the IANA time zone database in your browser (Intl API). The planner steps through the 24 UTC hours of the chosen date, converts each to local time in every city, and marks an hour as working only when the full hour is inside the working day you set. Overlap figures in the table were computed with the same logic for January 14, July 15 and March 18, 2026, with 9 AM to 6 PM working hours. Work week notes: official government announcements of the UAE (2022) and Saudi Arabia (2013).
Meeting Planner Questions
The meeting planner shows a 24-hour grid for each city you add. Each column is one hour of the day. Green cells indicate that hour falls within the working hours you set (default 9am to 6pm local time for that city). The overlap indicator at the top turns green when all cities are in working hours simultaneously: that is your best meeting window. Click any column to see the exact local time for each participant at that moment.
This is one of the most challenging combinations. New York (UTC−5/−4) and London (UTC+0/+1) overlap from 9am to 12pm NY / 2pm to 5pm London. But Singapore (UTC+8) is at 10pm to 1am during that window: outside business hours. There is no time when all three are simultaneously in standard business hours. A winter compromise: 8am to 9am New York is 1pm to 2pm London and 9pm to 10pm Singapore. Someone always has to accept an early or late call in this combination.
DST shifts clocks forward in spring and back in autumn, changing UTC offsets for affected regions. The US, EU, and Australia observe DST but at different dates. When the US has changed its clocks and Europe has not yet (in 2026 from March 8 to March 29 and from October 25 to November 1), the New York to London gap drops from 5 hours to 4. This planner automatically accounts for the current DST status of every city, so the grid always shows correct local times.
Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of New York during US daylight time and 14 hours in winter, so standard workdays never overlap. During US daylight time the usual compromises are 7 to 9am in New York (8 to 10pm in Tokyo) or 8 to 9pm in New York (9 to 10am the next day in Tokyo). From the West Coast, a 5pm Pacific call is 8am the next day in Singapore and a 7am Pacific call is 10pm in Singapore during US daylight time. Many US and Asia teams rotate between the two so the same people do not always take the late call.
Western Europe has excellent overlap: London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Zurich all differ by at most 1 hour, providing the same 8-hour work window with virtually any slot from 9am to 5pm working for everyone. Eastern Europe (Bucharest, Athens, Istanbul) adds 1 to 2 more hours. London and the US East Coast (New York, Toronto) are 5 hours apart, which leaves a 3-hour overlap on a 9 to 5 day: 9am to noon Eastern, 2pm to 5pm London. London and Dubai are 4 hours apart in winter and 3 in summer, so 9am to 1pm London works for both.
For recurring meetings, always invite using calendar software that sends invites in the recipient's local time. Never say "Monday at 3pm" without specifying the timezone. Best practices: (1) Send calendar invites rather than scheduling links when possible. (2) Rotate uncomfortable meeting times among team members to share the burden fairly. (3) Use the "follow the sun" model for large global teams: have each region own calls during their own business hours, with brief handoffs at shift changes. (4) Keep standing meetings consistent: change the time only for DST shifts, not every week.
Most countries use whole-hour UTC offsets, but some chose non-standard ones for geographic or political reasons. India (UTC+5:30) and Sri Lanka (UTC+5:30) use 30-minute offsets so the clock midday better matches solar noon. Nepal (UTC+5:45) and New Zealand's Chatham Islands (UTC+12:45) use 45-minute offsets. Australia has half-hour zones too: Darwin is UTC+9:30 all year and Adelaide is UTC+9:30 in winter and UTC+10:30 in summer. Iran uses UTC+3:30. When scheduling with these regions, remember that meeting times must account for these fractional hours, which is why this planner uses the full IANA timezone database.
The International Date Line (IDL) at 180° longitude is where the calendar date changes. Crossing westward advances the date; crossing eastward moves it back. This matters for scheduling: when it is 9am Monday in New York, it is 11pm Monday in Sydney in July but 1am Tuesday in January. A Monday meeting invitation sent from New York may show as Tuesday in Sydney. Good calendar tools handle this automatically. When confirming meetings manually, always include the full date (day, month, year) and timezone, not just the time.
When a team spans all continents (Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia), no single time works for everyone in standard business hours. Proven strategies: (1) Rotating meeting times, alternate between times that are convenient for different regions. (2) Asynchronous first: use recorded video or written updates instead of live meetings where possible. (3) Overlap core hours: identify the 2 to 4 hours per week where the most critical pairings overlap and protect those for essential meetings. (4) Core hours policy: each location commits to being available 10am to 2pm local time, maximizing overlap potential.
Working hours (9am to 5pm or 9am to 6pm) are standard for office workers in most Western countries. Business hours can vary: Japan often works 9am to 6pm or later. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait have a Friday and Saturday weekend with Sunday to Thursday as the work week, while the UAE moved to a Saturday and Sunday weekend in 2022. Some countries take long lunch breaks (Mediterranean countries, Latin America). China and India have growing tech sectors with later hours. When scheduling with international teams, verify the local work week structure. A meeting set for "Friday afternoon" falls on the weekend in Riyadh or Doha.
With a 9 AM to 6 PM day on both coasts, any time from noon to 6 PM Eastern (9 AM to 3 PM Pacific) works, a 6 hour overlap. The 3 hour gap stays the same all year because both coasts change clocks on the same dates. Arizona is the exception: its clocks match Pacific time in summer and Mountain time in winter.
From New York there is no shared hour in a standard day: India is 9 hours 30 minutes ahead during US daylight time and 10 hours 30 minutes in winter. The usual compromise is 8 to 9 AM New York time, which is 5:30 to 6:30 PM in India during US daylight time, or an evening call around 9 PM New York, which is 6:30 AM the next morning in India.