Best Meeting Time: Tokyo to London

Tokyo and London sit nine hours apart in winter and eight hours apart once British Summer Time begins, leaving just one hour of overlapping business time on either side of that gap. That single hour, 9am to 10am in London and 5pm to 6pm in Tokyo, is the entire working window both cities share, which makes preparation before any call non-negotiable.

Working Across Tokyo and London

The most active cross-city traffic between Tokyo and London comes from financial services. Tokyo hosts the Tokyo Stock Exchange, one of the largest equity markets by capitalisation in the world, and London is the largest financial centre in Europe, with the City of London aligned to the New York open at 2:30pm GMT. Fund managers, FX desks, and fixed-income teams in both cities are the most consistent users of this time corridor. Japanese banks with European operations, UK asset managers with Japanese equity exposure, and global custodians running 24-hour settlement all require regular contact between Tokyo and London offices. Beyond finance, automotive companies, electronics manufacturers, and trading houses headquartered in Tokyo often maintain European headquarters or large sales operations in London. Legal and consulting firms advising on cross-border M&A or regulatory compliance also rely on this route. At the office level, Tokyo teams tend to start promptly at 9am and the working culture, particularly in more established organisations, places weight on being present and responsive during core hours. London offices broadly run 9am to 6pm, though many City workers wind down informally around 5pm to 5:30pm on a typical day. Fridays compress further in both cities: London often quiets by 4pm, and Tokyo teams rarely take international calls after 5pm on a Friday. Anyone who schedules across these two cities regularly knows that Monday through Thursday is where the usable week lives.

Time Difference: Tokyo and London

London is currently 8 hours behind Tokyo. The live offsets are Tokyo UTC+9 and London UTC+1. Tokyo does not observe daylight saving and London observes daylight saving, so the offset shifts twice a year if both sides aren't already aligned.

Tokyo runs UTC+9 year-round. Japan does not observe daylight saving time. London shifts between UTC+0 (GMT) in winter and UTC+1 (BST) during British Summer Time, which runs roughly from the last Sunday of March to the last Sunday of October. In winter, when London is on GMT (UTC+0), the gap between Tokyo and London is nine hours, with London behind. When London moves to BST (UTC+1), that gap narrows to eight hours. To be precise: 9 minus 0 equals 9 in winter; 9 minus 1 equals 8 in summer. Because only London changes its clocks, the shift is straightforward. There is no equivalent US-style complication where two DST transitions happen on different weekends. The moment the UK clocks spring forward, the gap narrows from nine hours to eight, and it stays at eight until the UK clocks fall back in October, at which point it widens again to nine. For Tokyo-based teams, this means London colleagues become marginally more reachable each summer morning: the overlap window expands from a single tight hour at 5pm Tokyo time to a slightly more comfortable range ending at 6pm Tokyo, 10am London.

Best Times to Meet

The overlap between Tokyo and London is one hour. In winter, that window runs 5pm to 6pm in Tokyo and 9am to 10am in London. In summer, when London is on BST, it shifts to 5pm to 6pm in Tokyo and 10am to 11am in London, because the eight-hour gap means Tokyo's 5pm equals London's 9am plus one, or 9am BST. Inside that one-hour window, the cleanest slot is typically 5pm to 5:30pm Tokyo and 9am to 9:30am London in winter, or 5pm to 5:30pm Tokyo and 10am to 10:30am London in summer. This keeps Tokyo colleagues away from the very end of the day and gives London a settled start before the inbox takes over. The London lunch window of roughly 12:30pm to 1:30pm corresponds to 8:30pm to 9:30pm in Tokyo, well outside working hours. There is no practical midday option. Tokyo teams wanting to catch London in the afternoon, say 2pm or 3pm London, would need to join at 10pm or 11pm Tokyo time, which sits outside any reasonable working day. The one-hour overlap at day's edge is genuinely the only in-hours option.

These conversions use the current UTC offsets: Tokyo at UTC+9, London at UTC+1 (BST) giving an eight-hour gap, or UTC+0 (GMT) in winter giving a nine-hour gap. 9am Monday in Tokyo = midnight Sunday in London (GMT) or 1am Monday in London (BST). Far outside London working hours. 1pm Tuesday in Tokyo = 4am Tuesday in London (GMT) or 5am Tuesday in London (BST). Still not viable for London. 5pm Wednesday in Tokyo = 8am Wednesday in London (GMT) or 9am Wednesday in London (BST). This is the sweet spot: Tokyo is near end of day, London is just opening.

Working Hours Overlap Explained

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

Tips for Scheduling Across Tokyo and London

• Send London the agenda before you leave Tokyo at 6pm; it arrives mid-afternoon and gives them time to prepare.
• Golden Week and the UK May Bank Holiday overlap closely; clear the last week of April and first week of May early.
• Tokyo's 5pm Friday is London's 9am Friday. London is open but Tokyo rarely takes international calls at that hour.
• When UK clocks move to BST, the gap narrows from nine hours to eight, giving London an extra usable morning hour.
• A 5pm Tokyo standing invite covers both seasons: it maps to 8am GMT in winter and 9am BST in summer.

Public Holidays and Working Weeks

Tokyo's working week runs Monday to Friday, with a firm 9am start that most offices maintain consistently. The expectation of late-evening presence has eased in recent years, particularly in younger teams, but the day still begins on time. Fridays are a lighter day for international calls: most Tokyo teams socialise in the early evening on Fridays and rarely take external meetings past 5pm. London broadly mirrors that Monday-to-Friday structure, though Fridays wind down earlier, often by 4pm. The City of London has a stronger culture of informal late-day contact, with meetings between 5pm and 6pm common in finance. Lunch in London typically runs 12:30pm to 1:30pm, which falls in the very early hours of the Tokyo morning and has no bearing on scheduling. For holidays, Tokyo shuts substantially during Golden Week, running from 29 April to 5 May, when most offices close for four to five days. The mid-August Obon period and New Year from 1 to 3 January are the other two major blocks. London's key closures cluster around the May Bank Holiday on the first Monday of May, Christmas Day on 25 December, and New Year's Day on 1 January. Golden Week and the UK May Bank Holiday land close together, which can create a two-week stretch in late April and early May where both cities are partially or fully unavailable, and any Tokyo-London project work should be planned around that window well in advance.

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