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Time zone overlap calculator
Before you hire or outsource across time zones, it is worth knowing exactly how many hours a day you can actually talk to each other. The answer is often smaller than people assume, and occasionally larger.
Use your local clock.
Negative if they are behind you. India to New York is about -9.5.
Their local clock.
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The number that decides whether remote work works
Distance is not the problem. Overlap is. A team eight thousand kilometres away with five shared hours is easier to work with than one three time zones away where both sides keep rigid local hours.
Rough offsets from India
| Market | Offset from IST | Overlap with a 9–6 India day |
|---|---|---|
| UAE | about −1.5 | Nearly the whole day |
| United Kingdom | about −4.5 to −5.5 | Most of the afternoon |
| Germany, France | about −3.5 to −4.5 | Most of the afternoon |
| Singapore | +2.5 | Most of the morning |
| Sydney | +4.5 to +5.5 | Your morning, their afternoon |
| New York | about −9.5 to −10.5 | None, without a shift |
| California | about −12.5 to −13.5 | None, without a shift |
Offsets move with daylight saving in most of these markets and not in India, so the gap changes twice a year by an hour. Check it in March and again in November.
What to do when the overlap is small
- Shift one side deliberately. A team working 2pm to 11pm India time covers 9am to 1pm in New York. That is a real cost to the people doing it and it should be paid for and acknowledged, not assumed.
- Make the written record the default. Decisions, reasoning and next steps in writing. If the only way to find out what happened is to ask someone, a small overlap becomes a constant bottleneck.
- Protect the overlap for things that need a conversation. It is the scarcest resource you have; do not spend it on status updates that could have been a message.
The upside nobody mentions
A large gap means work happens while you sleep. For anything monitored rather than discussed — live campaigns, servers, support queues — that is an advantage, not a compromise. Problems get caught overnight instead of eight hours after they started.
Questions
Where do I find the offset?+
Search for the current time in both cities and subtract. Enter a negative number if they are behind you. Half-hour offsets are fine — India is on a half-hour offset from almost everywhere.
Does this account for daylight saving?+
No, and you should check it twice a year. India does not observe it, so the gap to Europe, North America and Australia shifts by an hour in spring and autumn.
What is a workable minimum overlap?+
Two hours is enough for a daily call and same-day answers. Four is comfortable. Below one hour, the relationship has to be designed around writing rather than talking.
Should the overlap be in my morning or afternoon?+
Whichever is the other side’s morning, if you can. People answer faster and decide faster at the start of their own day than at the end of it.
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