Best Meeting Times Between US and Japan Teams (2026)
8 AM Tokyo is 4 PM in Los Angeles the day before. West Coast afternoon windows, the East Coast dead zone, and why the Philippines slot is an hour off. -
Best overlap: 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM in Panama City is 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM in Sydney.
Panama City and Sydney overlap from 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM (Panama City) to the equivalent 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM in Sydney — that's your meeting window. Sydney is 15 hours ahead of Panama City, giving you a slim 1 hour to work with. Punctuality matters; start right at 5:00 PM in Panama City (8:00 AM in Sydney). When booking, note that Sydney is on the next day — it's worth spelling out the full date in the invite. Bear in mind Sydney shifts for daylight saving while Panama City stays fixed — recheck these hours after each clock change.
| Local time | 12am | 1am | 2am | 3am | 4am | 5am | 6am | 7am | 8am | 9am | 10am | 11am | 12pm | 1pm | 2pm | 3pm | 4pm | 5pm | 6pm | 7pm | 8pm | 9pm | 10pm | 11pm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Panama City America/Panama | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sydney Australia/Sydney |
8 AM Tokyo is 4 PM in Los Angeles the day before. West Coast afternoon windows, the East Coast dead zone, and why the Philippines slot is an hour off. -
Long-distance relationships, parents working overseas, grandkids in Auckland and grandparents in London. The work guides do not really apply. Here is a practical playbook for keeping family relationships strong across time zones. -
Slack converts timestamps automatically and shows everyone's local time, but it can't fix a bare '3 PM' typed into a channel. The settings worth changing and the habits that do the rest. -