Timezone Converter
Convert a date and time from one timezone to another and see the result in multiple formats instantly.
Input
Timezones
The timezone converter translates a specific moment from one timezone to another. Pick the source and target timezones, enter a date and time, and the converter shows the equivalent moment with the correct daylight saving offset applied. Supports every timezone in the IANA Time Zone Database (Asia/Tokyo, Europe/Berlin, America/Los_Angeles, and several hundred others), so meetings across continents and shifts in remote teams stop being a guessing game.
How the Timezone Converter Works
Enter a date and time, then choose the source timezone in the From dropdown and the target timezone in the To dropdown. The converter resolves both timezones to their current UTC offset (taking daylight saving into account for the specific date you entered), then translates the moment from one local time to the other. The result card shows the converted date in multiple formats so you can pick whichever fits.
- From timezone: the timezone the entered date/time is in. The default matches your browser's detected timezone, but you can change it.
- To timezone: the timezone you want to see the moment expressed in. Searchable dropdown lists every IANA timezone alphabetically.
- Swap button: reverses From and To with a single click, so you can flip the direction without re-selecting both fields.
- Use current time: fills the Date and Time fields with the present moment so you can convert "right now" without typing.
Click any result row to copy that format to your clipboard. To check the same moment as a raw Unix timestamp, use the main converter. For live clocks in multiple cities at once, the world clock shows up to 16 cities ticking simultaneously.
Why Timezones Are Harder Than They Look
A timezone is not just an offset from UTC. It is a rule that says "in this geographic region, at this point in history, the clock should read this time". The same region can change its offset twice a year for daylight saving, can shift its rules permanently (some countries abolished DST recently), or can split into multiple sub-zones based on jurisdiction. The IANA Time Zone Database tracks all of these changes worldwide and is what every serious timezone library uses internally.
- Daylight saving: most of North America, Europe, Australia, and parts of South America shift their clocks one hour twice a year. The exact dates differ by country and have changed multiple times in the past decade.
- Historical offsets: the same city may have used different offsets at different points in history. Moscow has changed its standard time multiple times since 1990; Samoa famously skipped December 30, 2011 entirely when it switched sides of the international date line.
- Sub-zones: Australia has separate timezones for each state, India has a single timezone with a 30-minute offset, and Nepal is at +5:45. Always pick the IANA name (Region/City) rather than a city name or an abbreviation, because abbreviations like CST or IST mean different things in different countries.
- Permanent shifts: Turkey moved permanently to UTC+3 in 2016 (no more DST), Russia did the same in 2014. Date libraries with stale data may still apply DST to these zones incorrectly. The converter uses your browser's built-in timezone database, which is updated by your operating system.
When to Use the Timezone Converter
Cross-timezone work is a daily reality for anyone in a remote team, an international company, or just with friends and family abroad. Common scenarios:
- Scheduling meetings across continents: convert the proposed time from the organizer's timezone to each attendee's to verify everyone can actually attend.
- Coordinating product launches: "Tuesday 9 AM Pacific" means very different things in Singapore, Berlin, and São Paulo. Convert it to each region's local time before publishing.
- On-call handoffs: the moment one engineer's shift ends is the moment another's starts. Convert handoff times to confirm there is no overlap or gap.
- Travel planning: a flight that departs at 11 PM local time and arrives at 6 AM local time is much easier to reason about when you convert both moments to a single reference timezone.
- Reading server logs: servers usually run on UTC. Convert log timestamps to your local timezone to match them against personal calendar entries or chat messages.
For arithmetic on the converted moment - shifting it forward by a few hours, comparing it to another date - use the date add/subtract calculator or the date difference calculator. To generate a Linux command that sets a server's timezone, the Linux date command generator outputs the correct timedatectl call.
How DST Transitions Are Handled
When a region enters or leaves daylight saving time, one local hour either repeats (the clock jumps back) or disappears (the clock jumps forward). The converter applies the correct offset based on the specific date entered, so a moment in March 12 of a year that begins DST on that day uses the standard-time offset before 2 AM and the DST offset after 3 AM, with the 2-3 AM hour itself being a transition gap.
If you enter a local time that falls inside the gap (a "spring forward" hour that does not technically exist), the converter resolves it to the nearest valid time. If you enter a local time during a "fall back" hour that is ambiguous (it occurs twice), the converter picks the first occurrence by default. For exact disambiguation, enter the UTC time directly or pick a moment far enough from the transition that it is unambiguous.
Frequently Asked Questions
A timezone is a region of the world that shares a common local time. Each timezone has a fixed offset from UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), plus rules for daylight saving transitions when applicable. The IANA Time Zone Database lists every timezone using the Region/City naming convention (for example Europe/Berlin, America/New_York, Asia/Tokyo) and is the standard reference used by virtually all date libraries.
Timezone abbreviations are ambiguous. CST can mean Central Standard Time (USA), Central Standard Time (Australia), China Standard Time, or Cuba Standard Time. IST can mean India, Israel, or Ireland. The IANA Region/City convention names a specific geographic location whose timezone rules are unambiguous and includes the full DST and historical-shift history. Always pick the Region/City form when configuring servers or scheduling cross-region events.
Yes. The converter uses your browser's built-in IANA timezone data, which includes daylight saving rules for every region. A moment in July in New York uses the EDT offset (UTC-4); the same date in January uses EST (UTC-5). The same converter call handles both correctly because it reads the rule for the specific date you entered, not just the current offset.
UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is the international time standard used by computers, servers, and aviation. It does not observe daylight saving and is the reference point all other timezones offset from. GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) is historically the same offset as UTC but is technically a timezone (Europe/London in winter), not a standard. For technical contexts always use UTC; GMT is conversational shorthand.
Different geographic regions have different UTC offsets, so 9:00 AM in New York is 6:00 AM in Los Angeles, 3:00 PM in Berlin, and 10:00 PM in Tokyo. They all describe the same single moment in absolute time, just expressed in different local clocks. The converter does this translation automatically given the From and To timezones.
When a region enters DST (spring forward), one hour of local time is skipped: 2:00 AM jumps to 3:00 AM. When the region exits DST (fall back), one hour repeats: 2:00 AM is reached twice. Times inside the skipped hour are invalid; times inside the repeated hour are ambiguous. The converter resolves both cases sensibly but you may want to enter the moment in UTC for strict precision near a transition.
The converter relies on your browser's built-in timezone data, which is updated by your operating system. Modern OS updates include the latest IANA Time Zone Database changes (called tzdata) within weeks of release. Historical and far-future dates are accurate within the limits of what is publicly known about how DST rules will evolve.
Not every country chose a whole-hour offset. India uses UTC+5:30, Nepal uses UTC+5:45, parts of Australia use UTC+9:30, and Newfoundland uses UTC-3:30 (or -2:30 with DST). These offsets reflect historical decisions to optimize solar noon at the country's center or to maintain a meaningful difference from neighboring zones. The converter handles them correctly because they are encoded in the IANA database.
Almost always UTC. Running servers in UTC eliminates DST surprises in scheduled jobs, simplifies log correlation across regions, and matches the timezone used by virtually all distributed databases and cloud services. Convert to local time only at the presentation layer for users. The Linux date command generator can output the timedatectl set-timezone command to flip a server to UTC if it is not already.
Yes for the modern era (roughly post-1970). The IANA database encodes historical timezone shifts as far back as the late 1800s for most regions, but very old dates may use approximated offsets because no one was tracking precise civil time before clocks were synchronized internationally. For modern business and engineering use cases, accuracy back to 1970 is more than enough.