In short
- To schedule a meeting across time zones, convert everyone's working day for the actual meeting date, find the overlap, and send the time in each city with its UTC offset.
- New York, London and Bengaluru overlap around 8:00 New York time. Add Sydney and no hour keeps everyone between 7:00 and 21:00, so rotate or split the meeting.
- The US and Europe change clocks on different dates. In 2026 the New York to London gap is 4 hours from 8 to 28 March and from 25 to 31 October, not the usual 5.
- Write times as city plus offset, such as 9:00 New York (UTC-4), not as abbreviations like IST, which can mean India, Ireland or Israel.
How to schedule a meeting across time zones
List where each person is, convert each person's working day to one reference clock (UTC) for the actual meeting date, and pick the hour where the most people are inside their working day. If no hour works for everyone, rotate the slot so the same people don't always take the early or late call.
- Use cities, not offsets. Write down New York, London, Bengaluru, not EST or GMT+5. Offsets change with daylight saving time; cities carry the rules with them.
- Convert on the meeting date. A gap that is right today can be wrong by an hour next month. The time zone converter applies the offset in force on the date you pick, not today's.
- Find the overlap. Compare working hours side by side, as in the table below. The converter's Meeting Planner does this for 24 hours and lists the best overlap.
- Send one unambiguous invite. Put the time in each city with its UTC offset, and set the time zone in the calendar event itself.
Worked example: New York, London, Bengaluru and Sydney
Here is a real team spread over four cities on Wednesday 14 October 2026. On that date New York is on daylight time (UTC-4), London is still on British Summer Time (UTC+1), Bengaluru is on India Standard Time (UTC+5:30, all year) and Sydney has just started daylight time (UTC+11). The times were computed with Python's zoneinfo module, which uses the IANA time zone database.
| UTC | New York (UTC-4) | London (UTC+1) | Bengaluru (UTC+5:30) | Sydney (UTC+11) | Inside 9:00-17:00 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 06:00 | 02:00 | 07:00 | 11:30 | 17:00 | Bengaluru, Sydney |
| 07:00 | 03:00 | 08:00 | 12:30 | 18:00 | Bengaluru |
| 08:00 | 04:00 | 09:00 | 13:30 | 19:00 | London, Bengaluru |
| 11:00 | 07:00 | 12:00 | 16:30 | 22:00 | London, Bengaluru |
| 12:00 | 08:00 | 13:00 | 17:30 | 23:00 | London |
| 13:00 | 09:00 | 14:00 | 18:30 | 00:00 Thu | New York, London |
| 16:00 | 12:00 | 17:00 | 21:30 | 03:00 Thu | New York, London |
| 21:00 | 17:00 | 22:00 | 02:30 Thu | 08:00 Thu | New York (end of day) |
| 22:00 | 18:00 | 23:00 | 03:30 Thu | 09:00 Thu | Sydney |
Three things stand out:
- No hour suits all four. For New York to be after 7:00 and Sydney before 21:00 at the same moment is impossible, because Sydney is 15 hours ahead. Someone joins very early or very late.
- Three-city slots exist. 12:00-13:00 UTC covers New York, London and Bengaluru (8:00-9:00 / 13:00-14:00 / 17:30-18:30). 07:00 UTC covers London, Bengaluru and Sydney (8:00 / 12:30 / 18:00).
- The date line bites. At 21:00 UTC it is Wednesday evening in New York and Thursday morning in Sydney. An invite that says "Wednesday 17:00" without a city puts Sydney on the wrong day.
For a group like this, the usual fix is two meetings (Americas-Europe-India and Europe-India-Australia) with shared notes, or one meeting that alternates between the two slots each week.
Best time for a meeting across the US, Europe and India
India doesn't use daylight saving time, while the US and Europe do. So the US-India gap is 9.5 hours from March to early November and 10.5 hours in winter, and the London-India gap is 4.5 hours in summer and 5.5 in winter. A slot that ends India's day at 17:30 in October lands at 18:30 in January.
| Group | Suggested slot | Local times, October | Local times, January |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York, London, Bengaluru | 8:00 New York | 8:00 / 13:00 / 17:30 | 8:00 / 13:00 / 18:30 |
| New York, London | 9:00-12:00 New York | London 14:00-17:00 | London 14:00-17:00 |
| Los Angeles, London | 8:00 Los Angeles | London 16:00 | London 16:00 |
| London, Bengaluru, Sydney | 7:00-8:00 London | Bengaluru 11:30-12:30, Sydney 17:00-18:00 | Bengaluru 12:30-13:30, Sydney 18:00-19:00 |
| New York, Sydney | 17:00 New York | Sydney 8:00 next day | Sydney 9:00 next day |
For US East Coast, UK and India teams, 8:00 in New York is the least painful hour most of the year, though Bengaluru colleagues finish an hour later in winter. US West Coast and India have almost no overlap: 8:00 in Los Angeles is 20:30 in Bengaluru in October. Most teams handle that pair with recorded updates and one evening call per week. Central Europe is an hour ahead of London all year, so a Berlin colleague sees 14:00 where London sees 13:00.
Daylight saving time changes in 2026 and 2027
Most scheduling errors happen in the weeks around a clock change. These are the dates for the regions in the example, from NIST for the US, the EU summer-time rules for Europe, and the New South Wales government for Sydney.
| Region | Rule | 2026 | 2027 |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States (most states) | Forward on the second Sunday of March, back on the first Sunday of November, at 2:00 local time | 8 March / 1 November | 14 March / 7 November |
| UK and EU | Forward on the last Sunday of March, back on the last Sunday of October, at 01:00 UTC | 29 March / 25 October | 28 March / 31 October |
| Sydney (New South Wales) | Back on the first Sunday of April, forward on the first Sunday of October | 5 April back / 4 October forward | 4 April back / 3 October forward |
| India | No daylight saving time, UTC+5:30 all year | None | None |
Southern-hemisphere clocks move the opposite way, so the London-Sydney gap swings between 9, 10 and 11 hours across the year. To count how many days you have before the next change, use the days between dates calculator.
The DST gap weeks between the US and Europe
The US moves its clocks two to three weeks before Europe in March and one week after Europe in autumn. In those weeks the gap between the two shrinks by an hour.
| Period | New York to London | 9:00 New York is |
|---|---|---|
| Most of the year | 5 hours | 14:00 London |
| 8-28 March 2026 | 4 hours | 13:00 London |
| 25-31 October 2026 | 4 hours | 13:00 London |
| 14-27 March 2027 | 4 hours | 13:00 London |
| 31 October-6 November 2027 | 4 hours | 13:00 London |
A recurring meeting is anchored to its organizer's time zone. If a New York manager owns a 9:00 weekly call, London sees it move from 14:00 to 13:00 for those weeks and then back. If a London organizer owns it, New York sees it jump instead. Nobody edited the invite, so people assume the calendar is broken.
Two defenses work. Put the gap weeks in the team calendar each year, and for anything time-critical in those weeks, such as a launch or a client call, confirm the time in both cities the day before. The same pattern applies between Los Angeles and Berlin (8 hours instead of 9) and any other US and EU pair.
How to write meeting times in invites
Write the date, the time in each attendee's city and the UTC offset for that date:
Wed 14 Oct 2026, 9:00 New York (UTC-4) / 14:00 London (UTC+1) / 18:30 Bengaluru (UTC+5:30) / 00:00 Thu Sydney (UTC+11)
- Avoid ambiguous abbreviations. IST is used for India Standard Time, Irish Standard Time and Israel Standard Time. CST can mean US Central or China Standard Time. People also write EST in July, when New York is actually on EDT.
- Name the day for anyone who crosses midnight. Sydney's 00:00 belongs to Thursday.
- Use 24-hour time or always add a.m. and p.m. "12:00" alone confuses people used to the other system.
- For logs and documents, use ISO 8601 with UTC: 2026-10-14T13:00Z sorts correctly and has one meaning everywhere. Our regex cheat sheet has a pattern for checking dates in that format.
The time zone converter has a copy button that produces a ready-made meeting message with the converted times, which you can paste into the invite description.
Keeping recurring meetings fair
Time zone pain adds up when the same person always takes the 7:00 or 22:00 slot. A few habits spread it out:
- Rotate the slot monthly between the two best options, so the early and late calls are shared.
- Shorten what crosses the hard boundary. A 25-minute meeting at an awkward hour is easier to accept than an hour. The online stopwatch has a 25-minute preset if you want to hold a hard stop.
- Rotate the roles too. Pick the next note-taker or host with the random name picker, so the person on the late call isn't also writing the minutes.
- Move routine updates to writing. Status updates can go in a shared document, which leaves the overlap hours for decisions.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best time for a meeting between the US, Europe and India?
Around 8:00 New York time. That is 13:00 in London and 17:30 in Bengaluru from March to October, or 18:30 in Bengaluru in winter, because India doesn't change its clocks.
When do the clocks change in 2026?
In the US, on 8 March and 1 November 2026. In the UK and EU, on 29 March and 25 October 2026. In Sydney, clocks went back on 5 April and forward on 4 October 2026.
When do the clocks change in 2027?
In the US, on 14 March and 7 November 2027. In the UK and EU, on 28 March and 31 October 2027. In Sydney, clocks go back on 4 April and forward on 3 October 2027.
Why did my recurring meeting move by an hour?
The US and Europe change their clocks on different dates, so for a few weeks in March and around late October the gap between them is one hour shorter. The meeting stays fixed in the organizer's time zone and shifts for everyone else.
How should I write the time zone in a meeting invite?
Write the time in each attendee's city with the UTC offset for that date, for example 9:00 New York (UTC-4) / 14:00 London (UTC+1). Avoid abbreviations such as IST or CST, which have more than one meaning.
Is there a time when New York, London, India and Sydney are all at work?
No. Sydney is 15 hours ahead of New York in October, so there is no hour when all four cities are between 7:00 and 21:00. Split the meeting into two groups or rotate the slot.