Best Meeting Time: Paris to London

Paris is one hour ahead of London year-round, which makes scheduling between the two cities straightforward by European standards. The gap is small enough that a 9am start in London lands at 10am in Paris, giving both sides a full working day in common. That said, the one-hour difference is easy to forget, and a missed hour can still derail a call.

Working Across Paris and London

The Paris-London corridor is one of the busiest cross-border business routes in Europe. Finance sits at its centre: French banks and asset managers, including those clustered around La Défense, regularly deal with counterparts in the City of London and Canary Wharf. The City of London operates with an eye on the New York open at 2:30pm GMT, which in practice means London's financial teams are at their desks early and often still trading or on calls into the late afternoon. Paris-based teams in the same sector need to match that rhythm. Beyond finance, legal, consulting, luxury goods, and media companies all maintain offices in both cities. A Paris-based lawyer advising on a cross-border transaction will expect the London side to be reachable from 9am London time, which is 10am Paris time. Tech companies with European headquarters split between the two cities are increasingly common, and their teams tend to work shorter lunch breaks than traditional Paris offices, making midday calls more viable than the cultural stereotype suggests. Anyone searching for a Paris-to-London meeting planner is almost certainly dealing with a recurring scheduling need: a standing weekly call, a client who insists on morning slots in one city, or a team that spans both offices. The one-hour gap sounds trivial but it means that a London team member who dials in at 9am is catching a Paris colleague at 10am, which is fine, but a 5:30pm London finish is already 6:30pm in Paris.

Time Difference: Paris and London

London is currently 1 hour behind Paris. The live offsets are Paris UTC+2 and London UTC+1. Paris observes daylight saving and London also observes daylight saving, so the offset shifts twice a year if both sides aren't already aligned.

Paris operates on Central European Time (UTC+1 in winter, UTC+2 in summer). London operates on Greenwich Mean Time (UTC+0 in winter, UTC+1 in summer). The gap between them is one hour in both standard time and in summer, because both cities shift their clocks forward by one hour for DST. Standard-time gap: UTC+1 minus UTC+0 equals one hour. Summer gap: UTC+2 minus UTC+1 equals one hour. The offset does not change across the seasons for this particular pair. Both France and the United Kingdom observe European DST rules: clocks go forward on the last Sunday in March and back on the last Sunday in October. Because they follow the same schedule, there is no transitional period where the gap temporarily changes, unlike the Paris-New York or London-New York pairs, where the US and Europe change clocks on different weekends and create a week-long anomaly. For Paris and London, the changeover happens simultaneously, so the one-hour difference holds every single day of the year. The current UTC offsets confirm this: Paris is UTC+2 and London is UTC+1, still one hour apart.

Best Times to Meet

The working-hours overlap between Paris (9am–6pm) and London (9am–6pm) is 8 hours: 10am–6pm Paris time, which is 9am–5pm London time. That is a generous window by international standards. Inside that 8-hour window, the cleanest slot is typically 10am to 12pm Paris time (9am to 11am London time). Both offices are past their opening routines, no lunch conflict exists yet, and London has not started winding down. Midday is usable in Paris tech offices, but a 12:30pm Paris call catches traditional French offices at the start of a lunch that can run until 2:30pm. If the Paris side follows that pattern, a 2pm Paris slot (1pm London) is safer than 1pm Paris. Late afternoon works well: 4pm to 5pm Paris time is 3pm to 4pm London time, clear of London's informal end-of-day around 5:30pm and Paris's 6pm close. Avoid pushing past 5pm London time; that is 6pm in Paris, which is outside standard working hours for most Paris offices.

These conversions use current offsets (Paris UTC+2, London UTC+1). 9am Tuesday in Paris = 8am Tuesday in London. London has not started its working day yet, so this slot is outside normal hours for the London side. 11am Tuesday in Paris = 10am Tuesday in London. Both offices are fully operational. This sits inside the 8-hour overlap and avoids the Paris lunch window. 5pm Tuesday in Paris = 4pm Tuesday in London. Workable for both sides. London still has time before its typical wind-down, and Paris is in its final working hour. In finance, London teams are often still active at this point ahead of the late New York session.

Working Hours Overlap Explained

Paris operates on Europe/Paris (currently UTC+2). London operates on Europe/London (currently UTC+1). The table below maps a standard 9:00 AM–6:00 PM day in Paris to London's local time.

Tips for Scheduling Across Paris and London

• Avoid scheduling Paris calls on 14 July; Bastille Day closes French offices and cannot be swapped for another day.
• 1 November is a French public holiday but a normal working day in London; check both calendars before sending invites.
• Paris and London change clocks on the same Sunday each season, so the one-hour gap never temporarily shifts the way it does with US pairs.
• Traditional Paris offices often observe a 12:30pm to 2:30pm lunch; a 1pm Paris call risks poor attendance outside tech teams.
• Friday afternoons in London wind down early; if the Paris side needs a decision, book no later than 4pm London time on Fridays.

Public Holidays and Working Weeks

London office workers typically follow a 9am to 5:30pm day, with Fridays often winding down noticeably by 4pm. Scheduling a Paris call for late Friday afternoon in London carries real risk of poor attendance or rushed replies. Lunch in London is generally 12:30pm to 1:30pm, and informal meetings in finance between 5pm and 6pm London time are common but depend on the team. Paris offices broadly run 9am to 6pm, but August is a significant exception. Most Paris offices close or operate with skeleton staff from the second week of July through late August. Scheduling any important meeting in this period is unreliable, and a series that runs through summer should have a Paris-side deputy confirmed before mid-July. On public holidays: Bastille Day falls on 14 July and closes Paris offices entirely. All Saints' Day on 1 November is a French public holiday with no UK equivalent, so London will be working while Paris is not. The May Bank Holiday in the UK falls on the first Monday in May; Paris offices are open that day. Christmas Day is shared. New Year's Day is observed in both cities. When building a recurring meeting series across Paris and London, mapping both public holiday calendars at the start of the year prevents last-minute rescheduling. The asymmetry around 1 November and the first Monday in May catches teams out more than once.

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