Time calculators

World Clock Calculator

Updated Aug 31, 2026 By Jehan Wadia
Rate Formulas
Date & Location Controls
All clocks and tiles show what they read on this date.
Quick jump (5 days)
    Type at least 1 character, then pick a result to add a clock card.
    Increasing adds a UTC card; decreasing removes from the bottom.
    Clock format
    MX = card clocks in 12h, timeline tiles in 24h.
    Primary display on cards
    Switch to Date to scan which cities are on another calendar day.
    Display & Overlay Settings
    Selected time range (keyboard alternative to dragging)
    Or drag across any timeline; drag the purple handles to adjust.
    Best Meeting Window
    No hour range selected.
    World Clocks
    Night 21–05 Morning 06–11 Afternoon 12–16 Evening 17–20 Purple outline + “Now” = current hour Dark left bar = new calendar day Diagonal hatch = outside working hours Thick red border + Sat/Sun = weekend Green outline + ★ = shared working hour
    Timelines scroll horizontally and stay in sync — the same column is the same instant in every city.
    Offset From Home (hours)
    Step-by-Step Solution

    Introduction

    The World Clock Calculator shows you the time in many cities at once. Pick a city, and you see its clock, its date, and how far ahead or behind it is from your home city.

    You can add up to 20 clocks. Search by city, country, time zone name, or short code like IST or UTC+5:30. Each clock gets a 24-hour timeline. All timelines line up, so the same column is the same moment everywhere.

    Setting up a meeting? Turn on the working-hours overlay. The tool marks the hours that work for every city with a green outline and a star. It also warns you when a city is about to start or end daylight saving time, so you don't book a call an hour off.

    You can also change the date to plan ahead, switch between 12-hour and 24-hour clocks, and highlight weekends. A step-by-step section shows the math: your local time to UTC, then UTC to each city. A bar chart shows each city's offset from home in hours. For a focused two-city conversion, try the Time Zone Calculator or the Time Zone Difference Calculator.

    How to use our World Clock Calculator

    Pick a date, add the cities you care about, and set your work hours. The tool shows the local time and date in each city, marks the best meeting window, and shows the step-by-step math.

    Viewing date: Choose the day you want to see. Use the arrows to move one day back or forward, or click "Today" to jump back to now. To shift a date by a set number of days, use the Date Calculator or the Add Days Calculator.

    Quick jump (5 days): Tap a day button to switch to that date fast.

    Add a location: Type a city, country, time zone, or code like NY, IST, or UTC+5:30. Click a result to add a clock card.

    Number of clocks (1–20): Type how many clock cards you want. A higher number adds UTC cards. A lower number removes cards from the bottom.

    Clock format: Pick 12h, 24h, or MX. MX shows 12-hour time on cards and 24-hour time on the timeline tiles. If you work in 24-hour notation, the Military Time Calculator and Time Converter Calculator help with conversions.

    Primary display on cards: Choose Time to make the clock big, or Date to make the calendar day big.

    Working-hours overlay: Turn this on to shade hours outside the work day. Set the Start and End hours. The end must be later than the start. For totalling a shift or a week, see the Work Hours Calculator and the Shift Calculator.

    Highlight weekends: Turn this on to mark Saturday and Sunday tiles with a red border. To count only weekdays between two dates, use the Business Days Calculator.

    Show zone abbreviation: Turn this on to print codes like EST or JST on each timeline tile.

    Selected time range: Pick a start hour and an end hour to focus on one window. You can also drag across any timeline. Click "Clear range" to remove it. To measure the length of a window in hours and minutes, try the Time Duration Calculator.

    Card buttons: Use the drop-down to change a card's time zone, the house button to set your home city, the arrows or drag handle to reorder cards, and the trash button to delete one.

    Calculate and Reset: Click Calculate to refresh all clocks and results. Click Reset to go back to the default cities and settings.

    What Is a World Clock?

    A world clock shows the current time in many cities at once. Every city sits in a time zone, and each zone reads the clock a little differently. When it is 3:00 PM in New York, it is 8:00 PM in London and 4:30 AM the next day in Tokyo. It is the same moment in time — only the clock face changes.

    How Time Zones Work

    Time zones are measured from UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), the world's time standard. Each zone has an offset, like UTC−5 or UTC+9. That number tells you how many hours to add or subtract from UTC to get the local time.

    • Plus (+) means the city is ahead of UTC, mostly east of the UK.
    • Minus (−) means the city is behind UTC, mostly west of the UK.
    • Some zones use half or quarter hours, like India (UTC+5:30), Nepal (UTC+5:45), and Newfoundland (UTC−3:30).

    Converting Time Between Cities

    The math is simple. First turn the local time into UTC, then add the other city's offset:

    1. Take the start time and subtract its UTC offset. Now you have UTC.
    2. Add the target city's UTC offset. Now you have the local time there.
    3. If the answer goes past midnight or below zero, move the date forward or back one day.

    You can also just use the difference between the two offsets. Tokyo (UTC+9) minus New York (UTC−5) is 14 hours, so Tokyo is always 14 hours ahead — until daylight saving changes it. To add or subtract those hours from a clock time, the Add Hours Calculator and Subtract Time Calculator do the arithmetic for you, and the Time Difference Calculator handles gaps that cross midnight.

    Daylight Saving Time (DST)

    Many places move their clocks forward one hour in spring and back one hour in fall. This changes their UTC offset for part of the year. That is why New York is EST (UTC−5) in winter and EDT (UTC−4) in summer. Not every country does this. Japan, India, and most of Africa keep the same time all year, and the southern half of the world switches in opposite months. Because of DST, the gap between two cities is not always the same number of hours, so it helps to check the exact date.

    Date Lines and Day Changes

    Since the day is only 24 hours long, some cities are already on tomorrow while others are still on yesterday. Places near the International Date Line in the Pacific show this best: Apia in Samoa and Pago Pago in American Samoa are close neighbors but sit about a day apart on the calendar. Always check the date, not just the time, when you set a call or a deadline. The Day of the Week Calculator and the Date Duration Calculator are handy when a day shift changes your plan.

    Finding a Good Meeting Time

    When people work in different zones, you look for hours that fall inside everyone's workday, usually 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM local time. Those shared hours are the overlap. The wider apart the zones are, the smaller the overlap gets. Zones more than about 11 hours apart often have no overlap at all, so someone has to take an early or late call. Weekends matter too — Friday afternoon in Los Angeles is already Saturday in Sydney. If travel is part of the plan, pair this tool with the Flight Time Calculator and the ETA Calculator.

    Why It Matters

    Time zones affect remote work, video calls, flights, live sports, market open and close times, server logs, and family calls overseas. Getting the offset wrong by one hour, or the date wrong by one day, is one of the most common scheduling mistakes. Writing times with the zone name or UTC offset, such as "2:00 PM EST (19:00 UTC)," clears up almost all confusion. For project dates and cross-border logging, the Deadline Calculator, the Days Until Calculator, and the Julian Date Calculator round out your toolkit, while distributed teams tracking hours often reach for the Time Card Calculator.


    Formulas used

    UTC offset of a timezone (minutes) from wall-clock parts
    \text{offset}_{tz} = \frac{\text{UTC}(y,\,mo,\,d,\,h,\,mi,\,s)_{\text{local parts}} - t}{60000}
    Timestamp of a local wall-clock time (zoned time to epoch)
    t = \text{UTC}(y,\,mo,\,d,\,h,\,mi) - \text{offset}_{tz} \cdot 60000
    Home wall-clock time converted to UTC
    T_{\text{UTC}} = T_{\text{home}} - \text{offset}_{\text{home}}
    Local time in a target city from the UTC instant
    T_{\text{city}} = T_{\text{UTC}} + \text{offset}_{\text{city}}
    Offset of a city relative to home
    \Delta_{\text{city}} = \text{offset}_{\text{city}} - \text{offset}_{\text{home}}
    Hour-column start instants of the 24-hour timeline
    t_i = t_{\text{midnight,home}} + i \cdot 3600000, \qquad i = 0,1,\dots,23
    Current (or reference) hour column index
    c_{\text{now}} = \left\lfloor \frac{t_{\text{ref}} - t_0}{3600000} \right\rfloor, \quad 0 \le c_{\text{now}} \le 23
    Shared working-hour overlap across all cities
    W_i = \bigwedge_{k} \left[\, h_{k,i} \ge h_{\text{start}} \;\wedge\; h_{k,i} < h_{\text{end}} \,\right]

    Frequently asked questions

    What does the home city do?

    The home city is your reference point. Every other card shows how many hours it is ahead of or behind home. The viewing date and the timeline columns also follow home time.

    Click the house button on any card to make it home. The home card gets a purple border and a Home badge.

    Why can't I delete one of the cards?

    Two rules block deleting:

    • You must keep at least one clock.
    • You cannot delete the home card.

    To remove a home city, first click the house button on a different card, then delete the old one.

    Why does the Now badge say Ref instead?

    "Now" means you are looking at today, and that tile is the current hour. "Ref" shows up when you pick a different date. It marks the same clock hour on that day so you still have a starting point.

    Click Today to get the Now badge back.

    What is the green outline with a star?

    It marks an hour that falls inside working hours in every city on your list. Those are your safe meeting hours.

    Stars only appear when the working-hours overlay is on and you have two or more clocks.

    Why is there no best meeting window?

    It means no single hour is inside the work day for all your cities. This happens when zones are far apart, like Los Angeles and Sydney.

    Fixes:

    • Widen your work hours, such as 8 to 19
    • Remove one far-away city
    • Split into two calls

    How do I pick an hour range without dragging?

    Use the Range start and Range end drop-downs in the settings box. They list all 24 hours in home time.

    You can also tab to a tile and press Enter or Space. Press Enter on a second tile to set the end of the range. Click Clear range to reset.

    Why do all the timelines scroll together?

    Because each column is the same instant everywhere. If they scrolled apart, the columns would no longer line up and the comparison would break.

    Scroll one timeline and the rest follow.

    Can I check a future date, like a holiday week?

    Yes. Change the viewing date and every clock, tile, and offset updates to that day. This matters most around March, April, October, and November, when daylight saving changes the gap between cities.

    A yellow banner reminds you that you are not viewing today.

    Why do two cities show the same time zone name?

    Because they share a zone. New York, Miami, and Columbus all use America/New_York, so their clocks always match.

    Also, some short codes are reused. IST can mean India Standard Time, Irish Standard Time, or Israel Daylight Time. Check the UTC offset badge to be sure.

    How do I reorder my clocks?

    Use the up and down arrow buttons on each card, or grab the dotted handle and drag a card onto another one.

    Order is just for reading. It does not change any times.

    Do my cities save when I leave the page?

    No. The tool starts fresh each visit with its default cities. Reset also returns you to those defaults.

    If you use the same set often, bookmark your city names or note them down.

    Why can't I set my work end hour before the start hour?

    The overlay covers one block inside a single day, so the end must be later than the start. An error message appears if it is not.

    For an overnight shift, such as 22 to 06, set the range in two steps or read the night tiles by color instead.

    What does the seconds counter next to the clock do?

    It ticks in real time so you can see the clock is live. It runs even when you view a different date, using that date's matching moment.

    Seconds are the same number in every city, since zones shift by hours and minutes only.