How to use the time zone converter
- Pick the date and the time as they appear on a clock in the source zone.
- Choose the source time zone, such as US Eastern, then add up to six zones under Convert to.
- Read the table. Each row shows the local time, the date (with a day shift if it crosses midnight), the UTC offset and whether daylight saving time is in effect on that date.
- If you choose a time that falls in a daylight saving change, the tool tells you what happened. Under More options you can pick the earlier or later moment when a time repeats.
Formula
UTC moment = local time in the source zone minus the source offset on that date
Local time in a target zone = UTC moment plus the target offset at that moment
Offsets are looked up for the exact date, never assumed
An offset such as UTC-05:00 means the zone is five hours behind UTC. The offset changes when a zone moves to or from daylight saving time, so the same two cities can be four hours apart in one month and five in another.
Worked examples
Winter: noon on Thursday, January 15, 2026 in New York is UTC-05:00, so the UTC moment is 17:00. London is on UTC+00:00, so it is 5:00 PM. Tokyo is UTC+09:00, so it is 2:00 AM on Friday, January 16. Kolkata is UTC+05:30, so it is 10:30 PM.
The three-week mismatch: the United States moved to daylight time on March 8, 2026, but the United Kingdom did not move until March 29. At 9:00 AM in New York on March 10 (UTC-04:00), the UTC moment is 13:00 and London is still on UTC+00:00, so it is 1:00 PM, a four hour gap instead of the usual five.
A time that does not exist: on March 8, 2026 clocks in New York skip from 2:00 AM to 3:00 AM, so 2:30 AM never happens. The tool rejects it and explains why. 3:00 AM that day is 07:00 UTC.
A time that happens twice: on November 1, 2026 clocks in New York fall back from 2:00 AM to 1:00 AM, so 1:30 AM happens twice. The first one is 05:30 UTC (UTC-04:00) and the second is 06:30 UTC (UTC-05:00).
Why daylight saving makes time zone math tricky
Most mistakes come from remembering a zone as a fixed number of hours from another. New York is "5 hours behind London" only part of the year. In 2026 the United States starts daylight saving time on the second Sunday of March and ends it on the first Sunday of November. The United Kingdom and most of Europe start on the last Sunday of March and end on the last Sunday of October. Australia and New Zealand are in the southern hemisphere, so their daylight time runs from roughly October to April.
Some places never change their clocks. Arizona (except the Navajo Nation) stays on standard time all year, Hawaii does too, and so do Japan, Singapore, India and the United Arab Emirates. Brazil stopped using daylight time in 2019. This tool reads the rules from your browser, so it follows whatever each zone does on the date you pick.
Times that are skipped or repeated
When clocks spring forward, one local hour is skipped. A meeting invitation for a time inside that hour cannot be converted because it never occurs on that clock. Pick a time before or after the gap instead.
When clocks fall back, one local hour happens twice. The converter keeps both possibilities visible, uses the earlier one by default and lets you switch to the later one. If the time matters, add the offset (for example EDT or EST) when you share it.
Privacy
The conversion happens in your browser using the time zone data that ships with it. Nothing you enter is sent to SumPanda or anywhere else.
Assumptions and limits
- Zone rules come from the IANA time zone database in your browser. Rules for future years assume current laws stay in force, and governments do change them.
- Dates are limited to 1970 through 2100 because older and farther future rules are not reliable.
- The list covers common business zones, not every zone in the world. Cities share a zone with others that follow the same rules.
- Seconds are not entered. Times are treated as the start of the chosen minute.
- If your device has an outdated browser, daylight saving rules that changed recently may be wrong. Update the browser if a result looks off.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert EST to PST?
Choose US Eastern as the source and US Pacific as the target. Pacific is normally three hours behind Eastern, so 3:00 PM in New York is 12:00 PM in Los Angeles. The tool applies this automatically, including on the days when only one of the two has changed its clocks.
Why does the converter say my time does not exist?
On the day daylight saving time starts, clocks jump forward by an hour. In the United States in 2026, the hour from 2:00 AM to 3:00 AM on March 8 is skipped, so a time like 2:30 AM never appears on a wall clock that day.
Which moment does it pick when a time happens twice?
It uses the earlier moment, which is the daylight time one, unless you choose the later one under More options. The result always shows a note naming both moments so you can see what was chosen.
Does it handle half-hour zones like India?
Yes. India is UTC+05:30 all year, so 9:00 AM in London in winter is 2:30 PM in Kolkata. In summer London is on UTC+01:00, so the same London time is 1:30 PM in Kolkata.
Is Arizona on Mountain time?
Arizona is in the Mountain time zone but does not observe daylight saving time. That is why it has its own entry. In summer it matches Pacific time, and in winter it matches Mountain time.
Can I trust conversions far in the future?
Treat them as projections. They use the rules that exist today. If a government changes its daylight saving rules, a future conversion could change, and updated browsers pick up those changes.