Best Meeting Time: London to New York

London and New York sit five hours apart for most of the year, which means a working professional in either city has a narrow but usable four-hour window each afternoon in London and morning in New York. That window runs from 2pm to 6pm London time, or 9am to 1pm New York time, and it closes faster than most people expect.

Working Across London and New York

The London to New York connection is one of the most active corridors in global business. Finance is the obvious case: the City of London is the largest financial centre in Europe, and New York is the financial capital of the Americas. When the NYSE opens at 9:30am ET, it is already 2:30pm in London, and City desks are watching the same screens. Traders, risk managers, analysts, and compliance teams at banks and asset managers on both sides of the Atlantic speak daily. Law firms with offices in both cities coordinate on transactions that close on New York time but are governed by English law. Media companies, tech firms, advertising agencies, and consultancies all run transatlantic teams that need a reliable daily call slot. The cultural rhythms matter too. New York office workers commonly eat lunch at their desks and hold client calls from 4pm to 6pm ET precisely because that window catches European partners before they leave for the evening. In London, the same late-afternoon slot is when finance workers are most available for a quick end-of-day call. Anyone searching for this page is almost certainly trying to set a recurring meeting, confirm a one-off call time without making an error, or work out whether a proposed slot will land at a reasonable hour for the colleague on the other side.

Time Difference: London and New York

New York is currently 5 hours behind London. The live offsets are London UTC+1 and New York UTC-4. London observes daylight saving and New York also observes daylight saving, so the offset shifts twice a year if both sides aren't already aligned.

In standard time, London is at UTC+0 and New York is at UTC-5, giving a five-hour gap. Currently, with London on British Summer Time (UTC+1) and New York on Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4), the gap remains five hours. The gap is the same in both standard and summer time because both cities observe DST. However, there is one short period each autumn where the gap shifts. The UK moves its clocks back on the last Sunday of October, while the US does not move until the first Sunday of November. During that single week between the two changeover dates, the offset narrows from five hours to four hours. A 3pm London call that would normally land at 10am in New York will instead land at 11am New York time in that brief window. In spring, the US switches to daylight saving before the UK does, creating a similar one-week period in March when the gap is again four hours rather than five. Both cities observe DST, so outside those transition weeks the offset is consistently five hours.

Best Times to Meet

Working hours in both cities run 9am to 6pm, and the overlap window is exactly four hours: 2pm to 6pm in London, 9am to 1pm in New York. Inside that four-hour window, the cleanest slot is typically 10am to 12pm New York time, which is 3pm to 5pm in London. By 10am, New York teams have had thirty minutes since the NYSE open at 9:30am ET to clear the immediate market noise. In London, 3pm sits comfortably after the typical 12:30 to 1:30pm lunch hour and well before the informal 5pm to 6pm close that finance teams favour for internal catch-ups. Avoid booking at 9am New York time if possible: that is 2pm in London but it is also the first hour of New York's working day, when inboxes are being cleared and the NYSE open is being monitored. The 12pm to 1pm New York slot lands at 5pm to 6pm in London, which works for short calls in finance but is a poor choice for anyone not on a City desk.

These conversions use the current five-hour offset (London UTC+1, New York UTC-4). 9am Monday in London = 4am Monday in New York. This is outside New York working hours entirely and is not a viable meeting slot. 3pm Tuesday in London = 10am Tuesday in New York. This is the most practical recurring slot, sitting mid-overlap on both sides. 5:30pm Wednesday in London = 12:30pm Wednesday in New York. London is at the edge of its working day; New York is at lunch. Workable for a short call but the London side will need to commit to staying late.

Working Hours Overlap Explained

London operates on Europe/London (currently UTC+1). New York operates on America/New_York (currently UTC-4). The table below maps a standard 9:00 AM–6:00 PM day in London to New York's local time.

Tips for Scheduling Across London and New York

• Book the 10am to 12pm New York slot whenever possible: London is post-lunch and New York is past the 9:30am NYSE open.
• Avoid Friday afternoons in London: UK working culture means many offices in London are quiet or empty from 4pm Fridays.
• During late October, the UK clock change creates a one-week four-hour offset, not the usual five: audit standing invites.
• Thanksgiving week removes most New York counterparts for several days; London remains fully operational, so plan around it.
• A 9am New York call lands at 2pm in London, which is usable, but it competes with the London afternoon rush of post-lunch activity.

Public Holidays and Working Weeks

UK office workers in London typically default to a 9am to 5:30pm day, with Fridays often winding down by 4pm. Scheduling a London to New York call for Friday afternoon London time is a reliable way to get a distracted or already-absent audience on the UK side. New York teams are less likely to leave early on Fridays, so the asymmetry matters. Lunch in London runs roughly 12:30pm to 1:30pm; in New York, lunch is commonly eaten at the desk, which makes midday New York time more accessible than midday London time for a scheduled call. On public holidays, the two cities rarely align. London observes New Year's Day on 1 January, the May Bank Holiday on the first Monday in May, and Christmas Day on 25 December. New York observes Independence Day on 4 July, Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November, and Christmas Day on 25 December. The December 24 to January 2 stretch is the heaviest out-of-office period in New York. Thanksgiving in late November can also effectively remove New York counterparts for several days while London remains fully operational. Any team running a recurring weekly call should audit both holiday calendars at the start of each quarter rather than discovering a clash the morning of.

Recommended Scheduling Tools

Some links are affiliate links. We only recommend tools we'd use ourselves. They don't cost you anything extra.

Related City Pairs

Frequently Asked Questions