Time Zones
Time Zone Converter
Convert a time between any two time zones using the IANA time zone database.
Time Zone Converter
08:00 on 2026-07-16
in America/New York — offsets reflect that zone's DST rules for this exact date.
Converting a time between two cities isn't a fixed offset problem, because Daylight Saving Time changes that offset for roughly half the year in many places — which is exactly why this tool works from named time zones like America/New_York rather than a flat "UTC−5" label.
International customer support teams, remote engineering teams, and anyone coordinating a live event across regions are common real users of this tool, and the two most frequent real mistakes are assuming a fixed offset that's only correct part of the year, and forgetting that not every country observes Daylight Saving Time at all.
How the Time Zone Converter works
This tool uses the IANA Time Zone Database — the same database built into modern browsers and operating systems — which encodes each region's actual observed rules, including exactly when Daylight Saving Time starts and ends and any historical changes to those rules, so a named zone correctly resolves to a different real-world offset in July than in January where that applies.
Remote and distributed teams are one of the most common real audiences for this tool, since coordinating a single meeting or deadline across even two time zones reliably trips up anyone relying on a fixed mental offset instead of checking the actual current rule for both zones involved.
Worked example
Converting 15:00 in New York to London: in July, both cities are observing their respective Daylight Saving Time ("summer time"), and the gap between them is 5 hours, so 15:00 New York = 20:00 London. In January, neither is in Daylight Saving Time, and the gap is still 5 hours in this particular pair — but converting the same New York time to a place that never observes Daylight Saving Time, such as most of India (a fixed UTC+5:30 year-round), would show a DIFFERENT gap in July versus January, since only one side of that pair is shifting.
Edge cases this tool handles correctly
- Not every country observes Daylight Saving Time
- Most of Asia, Africa, and a large share of South America don't use it at all, while the US, Canada, the EU, and several others do — and the ones that do don't all change on the same calendar date, since the US and EU currently shift on different Sundays each spring and autumn.
- Non-hour offsets
- A small number of time zones sit at a half-hour or 45-minute offset from whole-hour zones, such as India (UTC+5:30) or parts of Australia (UTC+9:30) — genuinely real, not a rounding artifact.
- Historical rule changes
- Some regions have changed their Daylight Saving Time policy within recorded history, which is exactly why the IANA database is versioned and periodically updated rather than treated as a fixed, unchanging table.
- Converting between two zones that share the same offset
- Two zones can share an identical current UTC offset without being the "same" time zone in the IANA database, since they may have different Daylight Saving Time rules that would eventually make their local times diverge on different calendar dates.
- Converting a date near a DST transition
- A time entered on the exact day of a Daylight Saving Time change needs particular care, since the offset can differ depending on whether the specific clock time falls before or after that day's transition moment — the tool resolves this using the exact date and time entered, not just the calendar day.
Frequently asked questions
Why does it use city names instead of a UTC offset?
Because a fixed offset silently becomes wrong across a Daylight Saving Time transition — a named zone carries its full rule history and future rule along with it.
Do all countries observe Daylight Saving Time?
No — see the edge cases above for which regions do and don't, and why the ones that do can still be out of sync with each other.
Does this call an external service to get the current offset?
No — the conversion runs entirely on data built into your browser or device, consistent with this site's static, no-runtime-API approach.
Can offsets between two specific places change across the year?
Yes, whenever only one side of the pair observes Daylight Saving Time — the gap between them shifts by an hour when one side changes and the other doesn't.
If two cities show the same time right now, are they the same time zone?
Not necessarily — they may share the same offset only temporarily, if their Daylight Saving Time rules differ and change on different dates.
Does the tool need an internet connection to look up the offset?
No — the IANA time zone rules are bundled with your browser or device itself, so the conversion runs entirely locally with no runtime lookup against an external service.