Best Meeting Times Between US and Japan Teams (2026)

A 4 PM Tuesday standup in Los Angeles is 8 AM Wednesday in Tokyo. Calendar apps get the date right. Slack messages do not.

Japan sits on JST (UTC+9) and has not observed daylight saving since 1952. The US still does, so the gap moves twice a year even though Tokyo never does. If you copied last winter's 5 PM Pacific slot into April, Tokyo is now joining at 9 AM, not 8 AM, and the invite will not tell you why.

Here are the windows that actually fit a workday, the one-hour trap if you reused a Manila slot, and where to put the recurring sync.

The short answer

Anchor to the Tokyo morning. Let the US time float.

US West Coast and Tokyo: 4:00 to 6:00 PM Los Angeles = 8:00 to 10:00 AM Tokyo (next day). Anchor: 4:00 PM Pacific = 8:00 AM Japan.
US Central and Tokyo: 6:00 to 7:00 PM Chicago = 8:00 to 9:00 AM Tokyo (next day). One hour, and that's the whole 8-to-6 overlap.
US East Coast and Tokyo: there is no window where both sides sit inside 8 AM to 6 PM. Pick an edge: 7:00 AM New York = 8:00 PM Tokyo same day, or 6:00 PM New York = 7:00 AM Tokyo next day.

West Coast is the pairing that works as a daily habit. East Coast is a weekly call at most, or it is async.

The time difference, quickly

US Zone	US Standard Time (Nov to Mar)	US Daylight Time (Mar to Nov)
EST/EDT	Japan is +14 hours ahead	Japan is +13 hours ahead
CST/CDT	Japan is +15 hours ahead	Japan is +14 hours ahead
MST/MDT	Japan is +16 hours ahead	Japan is +15 hours ahead
PST/PDT	Japan is +17 hours ahead	Japan is +16 hours ahead

Conversions people type into search:

9 AM EST to JST: 11:00 PM same day (standard) / 10:00 PM same day (daylight).
9 AM PST to JST: 2:00 AM next day (standard) / 1:00 AM next day (daylight).
9 AM JST to EST: 7:00 PM previous day (standard) / 8:00 PM previous day (daylight).
9 AM JST to PST: 4:00 PM previous day (standard) / 5:00 PM previous day (daylight).

Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, and Sapporo share Tokyo's clock. "Japan time" is one conversion, not a second lookup.

Do not reuse the Philippines window

Manila is UTC+8. Tokyo is UTC+9. Teams that already run a 5 PM Pacific / 9 AM Manila standup often paste the same slot onto Japan and then sit around for an hour.

The Japan version of that slot is 4:00 PM Pacific / 8:00 AM Tokyo. One hour earlier on the US side, same Tokyo morning. If your board already has Manila on it, put Tokyo on as a separate person. Do not alias them.

Seoul is the other mix-up. Korea is also UTC+9 and also skips DST, so Tokyo and Seoul are the same clock year-round. China is UTC+8, same as Manila, not Japan.

The "tomorrow" problem

A 4 PM Monday call in Los Angeles is 8 AM Tuesday in Tokyo. Invites handle this. Humans writing "see you Monday" in chat do not.

Write both local times, or write "your Tuesday morning / my Monday afternoon". It feels stiff for a week. Then it stops a missed standup.

Best meeting windows by US region

These use US daylight time (March to November), which covers most of the year and matches the live overlap pages. During US standard time the US side shifts one hour earlier for the same Tokyo slot.

US West Coast + Tokyo

The only pairing with a real daily window inside office hours. Tokyo and Los Angeles share about two hours:

4:00 to 6:00 PM Los Angeles = 8:00 to 10:00 AM Tokyo next day.
San Francisco is the same clock as Los Angeles, so the numbers copy across.
Stretch to 7:00 PM Pacific / 11:00 AM Tokyo if the US side can hold the evening. Do not make that the daily default.

Recommended anchor: 4:00 PM Pacific = 8:00 AM Japan. Tokyo starts on time. Los Angeles is still in the afternoon. From November to March the same Tokyo slot lands at 3:00 PM Pacific, which is nicer for the US, not worse.

US Central + Tokyo

Chicago and Tokyo get one hour inside 8-to-6:

6:00 to 7:00 PM Chicago = 8:00 to 9:00 AM Tokyo next day.
Recommended anchor: 6:00 PM Central = 8:00 AM Japan.

If Chicago cannot hold 6 PM, this corridor is a twice-a-week call, not a daily standup.

US Mountain + Tokyo

5:00 to 6:00 PM Denver = 8:00 to 9:00 AM Tokyo next day (daylight time).
Phoenix does not observe DST, so it stays 16 hours behind Tokyo all year, same as Los Angeles in summer.

US East Coast + Tokyo

New York and Tokyo do not overlap inside standard hours. You pick who flexes:

NY early morning / Tokyo evening: 7:00 AM New York = 8:00 PM Tokyo same day (daylight time). Push past 8 AM New York and Tokyo is past 9 PM.
NY late afternoon / Tokyo morning: 6:00 PM New York = 7:00 AM Tokyo next day. Tokyo starts early; New York stays late.

Product teams with US decision-makers usually take the late NY / morning Tokyo option so Tokyo starts the day with context. Do not run that daily. Once a week is already a favor.

Recommended weekly anchor: 6:30 PM Eastern = 7:30 AM Japan.

Anchor to Tokyo, rotate the rest

Two rules cover most of the pain:

Anchor the recurring invite to 8:00 AM Japan. That slot stays humane year-round while the US time drifts between mid and late afternoon. Anchoring to New York instead can silently push Tokyo to 9 PM when clocks change.
Rotate anything outside the anchor. Planning weeks, incident reviews, all-hands: alternate which side takes the ugly slot, and write down whose turn it was.

March is the month this falls apart if you skip the writing-down part. US clocks jump on March 8, 2026. Japanese companies are already in the sprint to fiscal year-end on March 31. A meeting that quietly moved an hour is how you burn the Tokyo side during the worst month to ask them for extras.

We wrote a longer piece on making the weekly slot stick: the weekly overlap ritual.

DST traps to put on your calendar

Only two dates matter for this corridor:

Second Sunday of March (March 8, 2026): US springs forward. US/Japan gap shrinks by one hour. A 4 PM Pacific / 8 AM Tokyo meeting becomes 4 PM / 7 AM Tokyo if you anchored to the US, or 5 PM Pacific / 8 AM Tokyo if you anchored to Japan.
First Sunday of November (November 1, 2026): US falls back. Gap widens by one hour again.

Japan never moves. Build around that.

Stop maintaining the table by hand

Every table in this post expires the next time the US changes clocks. Set the team up once at Timezoners with each person's actual hours, and the overlap recalculates itself through both DST flips. Paste the board link into the recurring invite.

Common questions

Can we run a daily standup between the US and Japan? West Coast, yes: 4:00 PM Pacific / 8:00 AM Tokyo fits. East Coast, no, not as a daily live call. Run it in writing and keep one live call per week. The daily standups across time zones post has the async format.

What about Japan and the UK? London and Tokyo are 8 or 9 hours apart depending on BST. A 9:00 AM London call is 5:00 or 6:00 PM Tokyo. Doable. Do not add New York to that call unless you enjoy a 4 AM audience.

What about Japan and Australia? Sydney is 1 or 2 hours ahead of Tokyo depending on Australian daylight time. Easy. A 10:00 AM Tokyo call is 11:00 AM or 12:00 PM Sydney.

Is Osaka on a different clock from Tokyo? No. The whole country is one zone. Same for Kyoto, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Sapporo.

Our Tokyo folks start at 10, not 8. Then the West Coast window shrinks to 6:00 to 7:00 PM Pacific. That is a twice-a-week call, not a daily one, unless the US side already works late.

Mid-August went dark. Was that us? Obon. A lot of Japan is out around August 13 to 16. Same class of blackout as Golden Week in late April / early May. Do not schedule a launch review on those dates and then wonder why Tokyo is quiet.

Where to go next

TL;DR

Japan is UTC+9 year round and does not observe DST.
LA to Tokyo is 16 hours in US daylight time, 17 in standard time. NY to Tokyo is 13 or 14.
Anchor recurring meetings to 8:00 AM Japan and let the US time float.
West Coast + Japan is the only pairing with a real daily window: 4 to 6 PM Pacific = 8 to 10 AM Tokyo.
The Philippines slot is an hour off. Do not reuse it.
Two DST dates matter: March 8 and November 1, 2026.
Use a live Timezoners board so the window recalculates itself.