Time zones
How to schedule meetings across daylight saving time without mistakes
Why international meetings shift by an hour in March and autumn, the exact 2026–2027 clock-change dates for the US, Europe and Australia, and how to avoid the trap.
The trap in one sentence
Countries don’t change their clocks on the same day, and some never change them, so the time difference between two cities is not fixed. A call that is 9:00 in New York and 14:00 in London for most of the year becomes 9:00 and 13:00 for a few weeks each spring and autumn.
The 2026–2027 dates that matter
- United States and Canada (most areas): clocks go forward on 8 March 2026 and back on 1 November 2026; in 2027, 14 March and 7 November.
- European Union and United Kingdom: forward on 29 March 2026, back on 25 October 2026; in 2027, 28 March and 31 October.
- Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra): seasons are reversed. Clocks go back on 5 April 2026 and forward on 4 October 2026.
- South Korea, Japan, China, India, Indonesia and most of Asia, Africa and South America: no daylight saving time at all.
We checked these dates against the IANA time zone database that ships with modern browsers, the same data Time Zone Converter uses.
The risky weeks
Trouble comes from the gaps between those dates.
- 8–28 March 2026: the US has moved forward, Europe hasn’t. New York and London are 4 hours apart instead of 5.
- 25 October – 1 November 2026: Europe has moved back, the US hasn’t. Again 4 hours instead of 5.
- Seoul or Tokyo with New York: 13 hours apart from March to early November, 14 hours in winter. A 9:00 New York stand-up lands at 22:00 in Seoul in summer and 23:00 in winter.
- Europe with Sydney: the gap swings between 8, 9 and 10 hours over the year because the two regions change in opposite directions.
How to schedule safely
- Anchor recurring meetings in one time zone. Calendar apps keep a series at the same local time in the organiser’s zone, and everyone else’s time moves. Decide whose morning should stay fixed, and tell the others their time will shift.
- Check the actual date, not today. Open Time Zone Converter, set the date of the meeting, and add every participant’s city. Each row shows whether that place is on summer or standard time on that date.
- Write invitations with a city or UTC, such as *15:00 London (UTC+1)*, not *3 pm*. “EST” and “EDT” are easy to mix up; city names aren’t.
- Put the change dates in your calendar. A reminder in the week before 8 March and 25 October saves a lot of missed calls.
Finding a time that works for everyone
In the converter, drag the slider and look for an hour where every row is green, which marks 9:00–18:00 local time. Between Seoul and Europe there is usually only a narrow window in the late afternoon in Seoul; between Seoul and the US East Coast, it is early morning in Seoul or evening in New York. If there is no good window, rotate the inconvenient slot so the same people don’t always take the late call.
To count the days until a deadline across these dates, use Date, Age & D-day Calculator.