Time Zone Converter
Convert any date and time between major world time zones with live offset and "time now" displays.
Written by Rahman · Last reviewed
Quick answer
Time zone conversion applies the difference between two zones' UTC offsets. Not all offsets are whole hours (India is UTC+5:30, Nepal UTC+5:45 and parts of Australia UTC+8:45), and daylight saving shifts many of them twice a year on dates that differ by country. This tool uses the IANA time zone database, the same source your operating system uses.
About the Time Zone Converter
A time zone converter answers the everyday "what time is it there?" question, useful for scheduling meetings, calling family, watching live events or coordinating across continents. Enter a date and time in one zone and see the matching wall-clock time in another, with the live offset between them.
This converter uses IANA time-zone data (the same database your phone and computer use), so it handles daylight-saving transitions correctly. The current time in both zones is also shown live for quick reference.
The offset between two cities is not constant
Time zone differences are usually memorised as fixed numbers: New York is five hours behind London, Sydney is nine ahead of London. Those figures are only true for part of the year, because daylight saving transitions happen on different dates in different countries and not at all in many.
Between the northern and southern hemispheres the effect is larger still, since the clocks move in opposite directions. The gap between London and Sydney varies across the year rather than holding at a single value, and a recurring meeting scheduled by offset rather than by local time will drift.
- The US and Europe change clocks on different weekends, producing a few weeks each spring and autumn when the usual offset is an hour out.
- Much of Asia, Africa and South America does not observe daylight saving at all, so their offset to Europe or North America moves twice a year even though their own clocks never change.
- Always schedule across zones by naming the local time in each location, not by applying a remembered offset.
Not every zone is a whole number of hours
The assumption that time zones differ by whole hours is convenient and wrong. Several countries use offsets of thirty or forty-five minutes, and they are not obscure ones: India, Iran, Afghanistan, Nepal, Myanmar, parts of Australia and the Chatham Islands all sit off the hourly grid.
India is UTC+5:30 and Nepal is UTC+5:45, a 15-minute difference between neighbours. Rounding either to the nearest hour produces a meeting invitation that is wrong by a quarter or half an hour, which is enough to miss the start of a call.
- Some countries span a single zone despite great width (China uses one offset across its entire territory), while others split into several.
- A few jurisdictions have changed their standard offset or abandoned daylight saving in recent years, so older reference tables go stale.
- This converter resolves the current rules for each city rather than assuming a fixed hourly grid.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is daylight saving handled?
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Automatically. The converter looks up the active offset for each zone at the specific date you enter, so spring-forward and fall-back transitions are reflected correctly.
What does "UTC+05:30" mean?
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The number of hours and minutes a time zone is ahead of (or behind) Coordinated Universal Time. India is UTC+05:30, New York Eastern is UTC−05:00 in winter and UTC−04:00 in summer.
Why is the time difference sometimes an odd number?
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A handful of time zones are 30 or 45 minutes off the nearest hour: India is +5:30, Nepal is +5:45, Iran is +3:30, Newfoundland is −3:30. Cross-zone differences can therefore be 9.5 hours, 11.5 hours, etc.
What about DST around the transition itself?
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On the day the clock springs forward, one hour does not exist locally; on the day it falls back, one hour repeats. The converter still gives a deterministic answer, but be careful with times scheduled exactly during the transition.