Best Meeting Time: Seoul to New York
🕐 Live Timezone Overlap: Seoul & New York
Seoul and New York sit 13 hours apart, which makes live meetings genuinely difficult. When it is 9am in Seoul, New York is at 8pm the previous evening. That gap rules out any conventional overlap within standard 9am to 6pm working hours for both cities. Every call between the two requires at least one team to work outside normal hours. Planning well in advance, and rotating the inconvenience fairly, is the most practical way to manage this corridor.
Time Difference: Seoul and New York
New York is currently 13 hours behind Seoul. The live offsets are Seoul UTC+9 and New York UTC-4. Seoul does not observe daylight saving and New York observes daylight saving, so the offset shifts twice a year if both sides aren't already aligned.
Seoul runs UTC+9 all year. South Korea does not observe DST, so the offset never changes. New York currently observes UTC-4 during daylight saving time, shifting back to UTC-5 in standard time. That means the gap between Seoul and New York is 13 hours in summer and 14 hours in winter. The shift happens twice a year on the US side only, so teams in Seoul should note that New York's clock changes will alter call times by one hour each spring and autumn.
Best Times to Meet
There is no in-hours overlap between Seoul and New York. With zero shared working hours across a standard 9am to 6pm day in both cities, every meeting falls outside business hours for one side. The least disruptive slot is typically early morning in New York, around 7am to 8am ET, which lands at 8pm to 9pm in Seoul. One cultural note: late Friday meetings are uncommon in Seoul, so avoid scheduling calls on Friday evenings Korean time wherever possible.
Working Hours Overlap Explained
Seoul operates on Asia/Seoul (currently UTC+9). New York operates on America/New_York (currently UTC-4). The table below maps a standard 9:00 AM–6:00 PM day in Seoul to New York's local time.
| Seoul time | New York time | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 9:00 AM | 8:00 PM | New York outside hours |
| 10:00 AM | 9:00 PM | New York outside hours |
| 11:00 AM | 10:00 PM | New York outside hours |
| 12:00 PM | 11:00 PM | New York outside hours |
| 1:00 PM | 12:00 AM | New York outside hours |
| 2:00 PM | 1:00 AM | New York outside hours |
| 3:00 PM | 2:00 AM | New York outside hours |
| 4:00 PM | 3:00 AM | New York outside hours |
| 5:00 PM | 4:00 AM | New York outside hours |
| 6:00 PM | 5:00 AM | New York outside hours |
Tips for Scheduling Across Seoul and New York
- Seoul does not observe DST; when New York clocks change each spring, your standing call time shifts by one hour.
- Late Friday calls land during Seoul's hoesik culture; schedule these on Monday to Thursday instead.
- With a 13-hour gap, rotate the out-of-hours burden: alternate who takes the early or late slot each week.
- Check both the Korean lunar calendar and the US federal holiday list before booking calls around January, February, or late November.
- A 7am New York start places the call at 8pm in Seoul, making it the least disruptive option for both sides.
Public Holidays and Working Weeks
Both cities follow a standard Monday to Friday working week. In Seoul, Seollal and Chuseok each bring three to four days of national closure, with dates shifting each year on the lunar calendar. New York's heaviest out-of-office periods include Independence Day on 4 July and the stretch from 24 December to 2 January. Any cross-city schedule between Seoul and New York should be checked against both calendars before invitations go out.