About the Time Zone Converter
This tool converts a date and time from your local zone into another major world time zone. Enter a moment in your own time, choose a destination city, and see the equivalent local time there, taking daylight saving into account.
Why time zones exist
Because the Earth rotates, the sun is overhead at different places at different moments, so a single global clock would put noon in the middle of the night for half the world. Time zones divide the planet into regions that keep a common local time, roughly aligned so that midday falls near when the sun is highest. Most zones differ from the universal reference, UTC, by whole hours, though some differ by thirty or forty-five minutes, reflecting political and geographic choices rather than pure astronomy.
The complication of daylight saving
Many regions shift their clocks forward in summer and back in winter to make better use of daylight, a practice called daylight saving time. This means the offset between two places is not fixed; it can change depending on the date, and the two regions may not switch on the same day, creating brief periods where the usual difference is off by an hour. This is exactly the kind of error that causes missed international calls and meetings. The converter uses your browser’s built-in timezone data, which tracks these rules, so the result accounts for daylight saving automatically.
Common uses
Remote teams use it to schedule meetings across continents without anyone miscalculating. Travellers use it to know what time it is at their destination or back home. People arranging international calls, watching live events broadcast from abroad, or coordinating deadlines across borders all need to convert time zones reliably. A small error here has outsized consequences, so doing it accurately matters.
Popular conversions
The pairs people convert most often are between India and the English-speaking world. India Standard Time (IST) is UTC+5:30 — note the half-hour offset — so New York is 10 hours 30 minutes behind IST in winter (EST) and 9 hours 30 minutes behind in summer (EDT). London is 5 hours 30 minutes behind IST on GMT and 4 hours 30 minutes behind on British Summer Time. Dubai (UTC+4) is just 1 hour 30 minutes behind India, Singapore and Hong Kong (UTC+8) are 2 hours 30 minutes ahead, and Sydney is 4 hours 30 minutes to 5 hours 30 minutes ahead depending on Australian daylight saving. Because half of these offsets change with the seasons, checking the converter close to your actual date is safer than remembering a fixed number.
Scheduling international meetings
To find a slot that works across offices, convert your proposed meeting time into each participant’s zone and check the orange live-time card to see what their clock reads right now. A useful rule of thumb: India–US calls land best in the Indian evening (early morning on the US coasts), India–Europe calls in the Indian afternoon, and India–Australia calls in the Indian morning. Always confirm the date as well as the time — large offsets push events onto a different calendar day, which is the single most common scheduling mistake. If a region is near a daylight saving changeover, double-check close to the date.
Related tools
For converting Unix timestamps to readable dates see the Timestamp Converter, for reformatting dates the Date Converter, and for date gaps the Date Difference Calculator. Conversion runs entirely in your browser.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I convert a time to my local time?
Enter the time as given, set “Convert From” to the zone it was quoted in and “Convert To” to your own zone, then press Convert. The green card shows the moment in your local time, and the date is included so you can tell if it falls on the previous or next day for you.
What is the time difference between India and the USA?
India (IST, UTC+5:30) is 10 hours 30 minutes ahead of New York in winter and 9 hours 30 minutes ahead in summer; for Los Angeles the gap is 13 hours 30 minutes in winter and 12 hours 30 minutes in summer. The gap changes because the US observes daylight saving and India does not.
Does it handle daylight saving time?
Yes. It uses the browser’s IANA timezone database, which tracks each region’s daylight saving rules by date — so a conversion for July and one for December can correctly differ by an hour.
Does it support half-hour time zones like India (UTC+5:30)?
Yes. Zones with 30- or 45-minute offsets — India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, parts of Australia — are converted exactly, not rounded to the nearest hour.
Can the converted time fall on a different date?
Yes, and the tool shows it. Large offsets often push a time across midnight — 9 PM in New York is already the next morning in India — so every result includes the full date.
Where does the conversion run?
Entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded to a server.