Best Meeting Times Between US and Australia Teams (2026): EST, CST, PST to AEST Overlap Guide
The US to Australia gap runs 14 to 19 hours depending on the month, and someone is always in tomorrow. Exact overlap windows for every US coast, the double-DST trap, and a rotation rule that keeps it fair. -
Scheduling between the US and Australia is the hardest common pairing in remote work. The gap runs anywhere from 14 to 19 hours depending on the coast and the month, and one side is always on a different calendar day. "Let's meet Thursday" means two different Thursdays.
Here are the windows that actually work, the reason the gap keeps changing, and how to stop redoing the math every quarter.
The short answer
For a US/Australia team that wants one reliable sync, anchor it to the Australian morning:
- US East Coast and Sydney: 4:30 to 6:30 PM New York = 8:30 to 10:30 AM Sydney (next day).
- US Central and Sydney: 3:00 to 5:00 PM Chicago = 8:00 to 10:00 AM Sydney (next day).
- US West Coast and Sydney: 1:00 to 4:00 PM Los Angeles = 8:00 to 11:00 AM Sydney (next day).
The West Coast pairing is the least painful. An LA afternoon lines up with a Sydney morning inside both sides' normal working day. New York is the rough one: there is no window where both cities sit inside standard 8 AM to 6 PM hours, so someone flexes every single time.
Why the gap keeps changing
Australia and the US are in opposite hemispheres, so their daylight saving periods barely touch. Both countries shift their clocks twice a year, at different times, which produces four different offsets between New York and Sydney across a single year:
| Period (2026) | US clocks | Sydney clocks | NY to Sydney gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 1 to Mar 8 | EST | AEDT | 16 hours |
| Mar 8 to Apr 5 | EDT | AEDT | 15 hours |
| Apr 5 to Oct 4 | EDT | AEST | 14 hours |
| Oct 4 to Nov 1 | EDT | AEDT | 15 hours |
| Nov 1 to Dec 31 | EST | AEDT | 16 hours |
Four dates to put in a recurring reminder: March 8 and November 1 (US changes), April 5 and October 4 (Sydney changes). Any static meeting time survives at most a few months before one of those dates moves it.
Los Angeles follows the same pattern, just wider: 17 hours from April to October, 19 hours from November to March, 18 in the shoulder weeks.
The "tomorrow" problem
A 4 PM Tuesday call in New York is an 8 AM Wednesday call in Sydney. Calendar invites get this right. Humans in chat do not.
The fix is a habit: never write a bare day name to the other side. Write "your Wednesday morning / my Tuesday afternoon" or paste both local times. It feels pedantic for about a week, then it prevents a missed meeting a month.
Windows by US region
These use the April to October offsets (US on DST, Sydney on standard time), which cover most of the year. During the Sydney summer the US side shifts one to two hours earlier.
New York + Sydney
The 14-hour gap means there is no standard overlap between New York and Sydney. Your two options:
- NY late afternoon / Sydney morning: 4:00 to 6:00 PM New York = 6:00 to 8:00 AM Sydney next day. Push it to 6 PM NY and Sydney gets a civilised 8 AM.
- NY early morning / Sydney evening: 6:00 to 8:00 AM New York = 8:00 to 10:00 PM Sydney same day. Harder on Sydney, and it gets worse in the southern summer.
Pick the first one. An 8 AM start in Sydney beats a 9 PM finish, and the New York person leaves the office an hour late instead of setting a 6 AM alarm.
Chicago + Sydney
- 3:00 to 5:00 PM Chicago = 6:00 to 8:00 AM Sydney next day.
- Recommended anchor: 5:00 PM Chicago = 8:00 AM Sydney. In the Sydney summer this becomes 3 PM Chicago, which is easier, not harder.
Denver + Sydney
- 2:00 to 4:00 PM Denver = 6:00 to 8:00 AM Sydney next day.
- Recommended anchor: 4:00 PM Denver = 8:00 AM Sydney.
Los Angeles / San Francisco + Sydney
The good pairing. San Francisco and Sydney get a real three-hour window:
- 3:00 to 6:00 PM San Francisco = 8:00 to 11:00 AM Sydney next day.
- Recommended anchor: 3:30 PM Pacific = 8:30 AM Sydney. From November to March the same Sydney slot lands at 1:30 PM Pacific. Both are fine, so anchor the invite to Sydney and let the US time float.
Brisbane and Perth
Brisbane skips daylight saving entirely and stays at UTC+10 all year, so the gap to the US only moves when US clocks change. If your Australians are in Brisbane, your meeting time changes twice a year instead of four times.
Perth is UTC+8, two hours behind Sydney, which pulls it usefully closer to the US West Coast: 12 to 13 hours from New York, 15 to 16 from San Francisco. A 5 PM San Francisco call is a 9 AM Perth call for half the year.
Anchor to Australia, rotate the rest
Two rules cover most of the pain:
- Anchor the recurring invite to the Australian city. A Sydney 8:30 AM slot stays humane year-round while the US time drifts between mid and late afternoon. Anchoring to New York instead can silently push Sydney to 6 AM when clocks change.
- Rotate anything outside the anchor. Quarterly planning, incident reviews, all-hands: alternate which side takes the out-of-hours slot, and write down whose turn it was. Teams that skip the writing-down part always end up with the same three people on 6 AM calls.
We wrote a longer piece on making this stick: the weekly overlap ritual.
Stop maintaining the table by hand
Every table in this post has an expiry date printed on it. That is the real argument for a live board over a cheat sheet: set up your team once at Timezoners with each person's actual working hours, and the overlap window recalculates itself through all four DST transitions. Paste the board link into the recurring invite and nobody re-derives the offset in March.
Common questions
Can we run a daily standup between the US and Australia? East Coast, not really; you would be asking one side for a daily out-of-hours commitment. West Coast, yes: 3:30 PM Pacific / 8:30 AM Sydney works daily. For East Coast teams, run the standup async in writing and keep one live call per week. Our daily standups across time zones post covers the async format.
What about Australia and the UK? 9 to 11 hours depending on the season. The workable window is the UK morning against the Sydney evening: 8:00 AM London = 6:00 PM Sydney in the southern winter. Tight, but it exists, which is more than New York gets.
Does New Zealand change anything? Auckland is 2 hours ahead of Sydney (both on standard time), so every window above shifts 2 hours earlier on the US clock. The San Francisco pairing stays workable: 2:00 PM Pacific = 9:00 AM Auckland next day.
Our Sydney folks start at 9:30, not 8. Then the New York window is effectively 5:30 to 6:30 PM, which is genuinely late. Consider moving the sync to twice a week instead of daily, or shifting it to the Pacific team if you have one. Boards with real working hours make this visible instead of theoretical.
Where to go next
- Best meeting times between US and India teams
- New York and Sydney overlap, live
- San Francisco and Sydney overlap, live
- The follow-the-sun handoff playbook
- Stop asking "what time works?"
TL;DR
- The NY to Sydney gap cycles through 14, 15, and 16 hours across the year; LA to Sydney runs 17 to 19.
- Anchor recurring meetings to the Australian morning and let the US time float.
- West Coast + Sydney is the only pairing with a real daily window: 3 to 6 PM Pacific = 8 to 11 AM Sydney.
- Four DST dates matter in 2026: Mar 8, Apr 5, Oct 4, Nov 1.
- Use a live Timezoners board so the window recalculates itself instead of you.