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: 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM in Sydney is 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM in Mexico City.
Keep meetings inside 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM in Sydney — that maps to 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM in Mexico City. There's just 2 hours of overlap here, so don't leave meetings to chance — lock 8:00 AM in Sydney / 4:00 PM in Mexico City into the calendar. One thing to flag — this overlap crosses the date line, so Mexico City is on the previous day relative to Sydney. These times hold for most of the year, but Sydney's daylight saving (which Mexico City doesn't use) shifts them by an hour twice annually.
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sydney Australia/Sydney | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mexico City America/Mexico City |
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. -