How to find a meeting time across time zones

The short version

Finding a time that works for people in different places is a small puzzle with a clear method. Write down where everyone is and when they work, line those workdays up in one time zone, and look for the hours they share. When the hours do not meet, you are no longer looking for a perfect time. You are choosing who bends, and doing it fairly.

The examples below use a team in New York, San Francisco, London and Bengaluru, a spread that rarely lines up on its own.

Step 1: Write down each person’s city and working hours

Use the city, not just an abbreviation. “Eastern” could be EST or EDT depending on the date, but “New York” always means the right clock. Then note when each person works. Do not assume 9 AM to 5 PM for everyone: some people start early, finish late or work a split day, and that changes the answer.

For this example, everyone works 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM in their own city.

Step 2: Line every workday up in one time zone

Choose a single reference zone and convert each workday into it. Here is each person’s workday in New York time on Wednesday, November 4, 2026:

Doing this by hand for four cities is slow and easy to get wrong. The MeetETA meeting planner does the same comparison for you, using the real clock rules for the date you pick.

Step 3: Pick the hours where every workday overlaps

Look for the stretch where every row of the table is “on”. Start with pairs, then add people:

• New York and San Francisco share 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM New York time.
• New York and London share 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM New York time.
• London and Bengaluru share 4:00 AM to 6:30 AM New York time, which is 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM in London.

Add all four and nothing is left. San Francisco starts work just as London finishes, and Bengaluru’s day is over before New York begins. If your group is only New York and San Francisco, you are done: pick any time from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM New York time. If there is an overlap for everyone, take the middle of it, not the edge, so nobody joins the second their day starts or ends.

Step 4: If there is no overlap, rotate the awkward slot

With this team, someone has to move outside their hours. Do not let that fall on the same person every time. Choose two slots that spread the cost, and alternate between them:

• Slot A (12:00 PM New York) is a normal hour in New York and San Francisco and the very end of the day in London. Bengaluru joins at 10:30 PM.
• Slot B (9:00 AM New York) gives Bengaluru a 7:30 PM call and London a mid-afternoon one. San Francisco joins at 6:00 AM.

If the call is weekly, alternate A and B week by week, and tell the team the pattern in the invite. Bengaluru is not always up late, and San Francisco is not always up early. If a call does not need everyone, consider a shorter one with only the people who must be there, and send the rest a short written summary.

Step 5: Check clock changes before you confirm

Time zone gaps are not fixed. The US and the UK change their clocks on different dates, and India does not change its clocks at all. In 2027, the US moves its clocks on March 14 and the UK on March 28. For those two weeks New York and London are 4 hours apart instead of 5. A slot that fit last month can land an hour outside someone’s day. Look at the date of the meeting, not just the weekday. For this fall’s changes, see our daylight saving time guide, and for the US and India in particular, the US and India meeting times guide.

Send the time so nobody has to convert it

Write the invite with each person’s city and local time, for example “12:00 PM New York, 9:00 AM San Francisco, 5:00 PM London, 10:30 PM Bengaluru”. Or use MeetETA to share a link that shows the time in each viewer’s own zone. To check a single time quickly, the time zone converter works from a sentence like “12pm New York to Bengaluru”.

Common questions