How to use the time zone converter

Pick the city or IANA zone (e.g., “America/New_York”) from the dropdown. The converter reads your device’s time zone data, so it already knows whether that location is on daylight saving time or not.

Type hours and minutes in 12-hour or 24-hour format. Both work.

Select the destination city or zone.

The display shows the equivalent time in the target zone and, for most pairs, the UTC offset of each zone at that moment.

The converter handles all DST transitions automatically. You do not need to add or subtract an hour manually.

What do UTC offsets mean?

A UTC offset is the number of hours and minutes a time zone is ahead of or behind Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

  • UTC+1 means the local time is one hour ahead of UTC. Berlin in winter is UTC+1.
  • UTC-5 means the local time is five hours behind UTC. New York in winter is UTC-5.
  • UTC+5:30 means the local time is five hours and thirty minutes ahead of UTC. India Standard Time is always UTC+5:30.

Offsets are written with a plus or minus sign, two digits for hours, and optionally two digits for minutes. 30 minutes is 0.50 decimal hours. 45 minutes is 0.75 decimal hours.

Why the converter shows different results in summer

Daylight Saving Time (DST) changes the UTC offset for part of the year. When DST is in effect, clocks are moved forward by one hour. This changes the offset used for that location.

  • New York in January: Eastern Standard Time, offset UTC-5.
  • New York in July: Eastern Daylight Time, offset UTC-4.

The converter knows the exact date of the DST change for each location because it uses the IANA time zone database. For 30 September 2026, the database shows the correct offset for every zone on that date.

Common DST facts

  • The United States and Canada begin DST on the second Sunday of March and end on the first Sunday of November (since 2007).
  • The United Kingdom begins British Summer Time (BST, UTC+1) on the last Sunday of March and ends on the last Sunday of October.
  • The European Union follows the same schedule as the UK.
  • Australia begins DST on the first Sunday of October and ends on the first Sunday of April (southern hemisphere summer).
  • Arizona (except the Navajo Nation), Hawaii, and most US territories do not observe DST.
  • China, India, and Japan have a single time zone and no DST.

What time zone abbreviations mean

Time zone abbreviations are short codes like EST, PST, or CET. They are not reliable for conversions because the same abbreviation can mean different things.

  • CST can mean Central Standard Time (US, UTC-6), China Standard Time (UTC+8), or Cuba Standard Time (UTC-5).
  • IST can mean India Standard Time (UTC+5:30), Israel Standard Time (UTC+2), or Irish Standard Time (UTC+1, summer only).
  • BST can mean British Summer Time (UTC+1), Bangladesh Standard Time (UTC+6), or Bougainville Standard Time (UTC+11).

Always use the full IANA time zone name (e.g., “America/Chicago”, “Asia/Shanghai”, “Asia/Kolkata”) rather than an abbreviation. The IANA names are unambiguous.

Why “same time next week” can be wrong

If you schedule a meeting for “same time next week” during a DST transition week, the actual time difference may change.

A meeting at 10:00 in New York (EDT, UTC-4) on 1 March. One week later, on 8 March, the US has not yet changed clocks (DST starts 9 March in 2026). The offset is still UTC-4. The meeting time is the same.

But if the meeting is on 8 March and the other location is London (still on GMT, UTC+0), the difference is 5 hours. On 15 March, London has moved to BST (UTC+1), so the difference becomes 4 hours. The “same time” in New York is now one hour different in London.

Always use a time zone converter to check the time for any meeting more than a few days away.

Finding the IANA time zone for your city

The IANA time zone database uses names like “Europe/London”, “America/New_York”, or “Asia/Tokyo”. To find yours:

  1. Look for the continent or ocean (America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Pacific, Atlantic, Indian).
  2. Find the nearest major city. The database uses a representative city for each zone, not every town.
  3. If your city is not listed, pick the zone for the largest city in your region that shares your clock rules. For example, “Europe/Berlin” covers most of Central Europe.

The converter includes a search field. Type the city name and it will suggest the matching IANA zone.