Time zone meeting planner

List two to six cities or time zones and a day, and it finds the hours when everyone can meet: within everyone's working hours on a weekday when such hours exist, within waking hours when they do not. It also lays out the whole day hour by hour in every place and gives you the first slot as a calendar file. For teams spread across time zones. Free, no account, nothing stored.

What it does, and why it is here

Planning a meeting across time zones goes wrong in three places. The offset you remember holds for only part of the year, because countries change their clocks on different dates, and some never do. Someone's afternoon is somebody else's tomorrow, or their Saturday. And an hour that suits two people breaks for the third.

The planner reads every place on the day you give, with that day's offsets, and keeps only the hours when the whole meeting fits for everyone.

What you fill in

• Places — two to six, one per line: a city (Tokyo, New York) or an IANA time zone (America/New_York). When several places share a name, add the two-letter country code after a comma: Cambridge, GB or Cambridge, US. The first line is the host: the day and every hour of the answer are read on its clock. A name the planner cannot match is refused, and the message names the closest place it found, if any.
• Day — the date to plan, in the host's calendar. It opens on today. The weekday matters: Saturday and Sunday are never working hours.
• Meeting length — 30, 60, 90 or 120 minutes, 60 by default. A slot counts only if the whole meeting fits, from start to end.
• Work starts at and Work ends at — whole hours, 9 and 18 by default, applied as local time in every place. The start runs from 0 to 23, the end from 1 to 24, and the end must come later.

What you get back

• A verdict, with the first window on the host's clock written large. Everyone is at work: the meeting fits inside everyone's working hours on a weekday. No common working hours — everyone is awake: it does not, so the planner falls back to waking hours, 7:00 to 22:00 in every place, and says so. No hour keeps everyone awake: even the fallback fails, and the page suggests what to change.
• The windows — every stretch of the host's day where the meeting fits, in every place's local time. A window runs from the earliest start to the end of the latest meeting: London and New York on Wednesday, October 14, 2026 give 14:00–18:00 in London, 09:00–13:00 in New York, so a one-hour meeting can start anywhere from 14:00 to 17:00 London time. Starts fall on the hour and the half hour, which lets half-hour zones through: Berlin and Bengaluru share 09:00–14:30 Berlin time, 12:30–18:00 in India.
• The whole day, hour by hour — one row per hour of the host's day and, for each place, its local time tinted by status: working hours, awake (7:00–22:00) or night. Each column header gives the place's UTC offset that day. A place already on another date says so: at 00:00 in London, New York reads 19:00 (−1).
• Days when the clocks change — the grid has 23 rows on the host's spring-forward day and 25 on its fall-back day, where the repeated hour appears twice: on Sunday, October 25, 2026, Paris shows 02:00 twice.
• A calendar file — Add to my calendar, under the answer, downloads the first slot of the first window as an .ics file: an event called Meeting across time zones, as long as the meeting, whose description gives its start in every place (Europe/London 14:00 · America/New_York 09:00). When there is no window, there is no file.

What it does not do

It does not know anyone's calendar. It finds the hours that are reasonable on the clock, not the hours people are free: meetings already booked, lunch, public holidays and days off are yours to check.

It applies one rule to everyone: the same working hours in every place, the same waking hours, and a weekend on Saturday and Sunday everywhere, including where the working week runs differently.

It plans one day, read on the host's clock. Every window sits within the host's date: a meeting that would run past the host's midnight is not proposed.

It does not take abbreviations: EST, PST or IST is looked up as a place and refused, since no place bears that name. Write the city or the IANA name, then check the name each place comes back under in the column headers: a name several towns share can land on another one than you meant.

Common working hours between well-known cities

Computed with the planner for a one-hour meeting and working hours of 9:00 to 18:00, on two Wednesdays: October 14, 2026, with Europe, North America and Sydney on summer time, and January 13, 2027, in the northern winter. The host comes first; each cell gives the window on its clock, then on the other city's. Awake marks the fallback: no common working hours, only 7:00 to 22:00.

Questions

What time works for a meeting between New York and London?

On a weekday, 9:00 to 13:00 in New York, which is 14:00 to 18:00 in London, with working hours of 9:00 to 18:00 in both. The two countries change their clocks on different Sundays, so for a few weeks a year the window grows by an hour: on October 28, 2026 and March 17, 2027, it runs 9:00 to 14:00 in New York, 13:00 to 18:00 in London.

There are no common working hours. What now?

The planner has already fallen back to the hours when everyone is awake, 7:00 to 22:00, and says so. If that is not enough, widen the working hours, shorten the meeting, or split the group into two calls.

Does it take weekends into account?

Yes, place by place, which matters across the date line: on Friday, October 16, 2026, Los Angeles and Sydney have no common working hours, because Friday afternoon in Los Angeles is Saturday morning in Sydney. The planner then offers waking hours instead.

What do (+1) and (−1) next to a time mean?

That place is already on the next day, or still on the previous one, compared with the host: 18:00 on Wednesday, October 14, 2026 in New York is 07:00 on Thursday in Tokyo, written 07:00 (+1).

Why can't it find my city?

Because the name as written is not one the gazetteer knows, and it often keeps the English form: Munich is found where München is not, Bengaluru where Bangalore is not. A name that only begins another place's is refused too, with the closest place named: Wien is refused, Vienna is found. A country code after a comma must match the place found. Otherwise, write the time zone (Europe/Vienna).

How do I send the chosen time to everyone?

Download the calendar file under the answer and attach it to your invitation, or add it to your calendar and invite people from there. Its description lists the time in every place.

Sources and further reading

• IANA time zone database — the zone names the planner takes, and the offsets and clock changes it applies.
• GeoNames — the public gazetteer city names are matched against.
• Daylight saving time by country — who changes their clocks, and when.