London & Los Angeles Time Difference
🕐 Live Timezone Overlap: London & Los Angeles
London and Los Angeles sit 8 hours apart, which makes routine scheduling genuinely awkward. The working day in London runs 9am to 6pm; in Los Angeles, the same window runs 9am to 6pm Pacific. Those two windows share only 1 hour of overlap. That single hour falls at the close of the London day and the very start of the Los Angeles morning, so both sides are working at the edges of their capacity when they meet.
Time Difference: London and Los Angeles
Los Angeles is currently 8 hours behind London. The live offsets are London UTC+1 and Los Angeles UTC-7. London observes daylight saving and Los Angeles also observes daylight saving, so the offset shifts twice a year if both sides aren't already aligned.
London currently observes British Summer Time, running at UTC+1. Los Angeles is on Pacific Daylight Time, at UTC minus 7. Both cities observe DST, but their changeover dates differ. In autumn, UK clocks revert one week before US clocks, briefly pushing the London to Los Angeles gap from 8 hours to 9 hours for that one week. The same asymmetry applies in spring, so the offset narrows and widens at slightly different moments for each city.
Best Times to Meet
The overlap window between London and Los Angeles is 1 hour: 5pm to 6pm in London, 9am to 10am in Los Angeles. Inside that 1-hour window, 9am Pacific is the cleanest slot for Los Angeles, though many LA media and tech offices skew later, with staff often not arriving until 10am. For London, informal meetings between 5pm and 6pm are common in finance, so that end-of-day slot is culturally acceptable there. Friday is the one exception: London tends to wind down by 4pm, and LA offices, particularly in Hollywood production, often release early.
Working Hours Overlap Explained
London operates on Europe/London (currently UTC+1). Los Angeles operates on America/Los_Angeles (currently UTC-7). The table below maps a standard 9:00 AM–6:00 PM day in London to Los Angeles's local time.
| London time | Los Angeles time | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 9:00 AM | 1:00 AM | Los Angeles outside hours |
| 10:00 AM | 2:00 AM | Los Angeles outside hours |
| 11:00 AM | 3:00 AM | Los Angeles outside hours |
| 12:00 PM | 4:00 AM | Los Angeles outside hours |
| 1:00 PM | 5:00 AM | Los Angeles outside hours |
| 2:00 PM | 6:00 AM | Los Angeles outside hours |
| 3:00 PM | 7:00 AM | Los Angeles outside hours |
| 4:00 PM | 8:00 AM | Los Angeles just starting |
| 5:00 PM | 9:00 AM | Los Angeles in business hours |
| 6:00 PM | 10:00 AM | Los Angeles in business hours |
Tips for Scheduling Across London and Los Angeles
- Book London to Los Angeles calls at exactly 9am Pacific; that 1-hour overlap closes fast.
- Avoid Fridays: London winds down by 4pm and LA offices, especially in production, release early.
- In autumn, check whether UK clocks have changed before US clocks; the gap may be 9 hours that week.
- LA media and tech staff often start at 10am Pacific, so your 9am slot may reach voicemail.
- Verify both the UK and US holiday calendars: Christmas and New Year fall on the same dates, but Thanksgiving and the May Bank Holiday do not.
Public Holidays and Working Weeks
Both cities follow a standard Monday to Friday working week. Key holidays to watch include New Year's Day and Christmas Day, shared by both London and Los Angeles, plus the May Bank Holiday in London and Thanksgiving and Independence Day in Los Angeles. Cross-city meetings should be checked against both calendars before invites go out. A date that looks clear in London may land on a US federal holiday, and vice versa.