A team in India can keep work moving while you are offline, but only if both sides plan around the clock. India uses a single time zone, Indian Standard Time (IST), which is UTC+5:30, and it does not change its clocks during the year. Most of the confusion comes from the other side: when the US, UK, Canada or Australia change their clocks, the gap with India changes too. This guide sets out the differences, the dates they shift, realistic overlap hours and the working habits that make the distance easy to manage.
The time differences at a glance
The list below shows how far India is ahead of each location, or behind it, in standard time and in daylight saving time. Where a place does not change its clocks, there is one figure all year.
- US Eastern (New York): India is 10 hours 30 minutes ahead in standard time (UTC−5), and 9 hours 30 minutes ahead in daylight time (UTC−4).
- US Pacific (Los Angeles, Seattle): India is 13 hours 30 minutes ahead in standard time (UTC−8), and 12 hours 30 minutes ahead in daylight time (UTC−7).
- UK (London): India is 5 hours 30 minutes ahead in winter (GMT), and 4 hours 30 minutes ahead during British Summer Time.
- Eastern Canada (Quebec and most of Ontario, including Toronto): the same as US Eastern — 10 hours 30 minutes in standard time, 9 hours 30 minutes in daylight time.
- British Columbia (Vancouver and most of the province): on Pacific time at UTC−7 all year since March 2026, so India is 12 hours 30 minutes ahead year-round.
- Sydney and Melbourne: 4 hours 30 minutes ahead of India in standard time (UTC+10), and 5 hours 30 minutes ahead during daylight saving (UTC+11).
- Perth: 2 hours 30 minutes ahead of India all year (UTC+8).
- UAE (Dubai, Abu Dhabi): India is 1 hour 30 minutes ahead all year (UTC+4).
- Singapore: 2 hours 30 minutes ahead of India all year (UTC+8).
When the gap shifts during the year
Because India does not use daylight saving, the gap changes on the dates other countries change their clocks. The UAE, Singapore and Western Australia (Perth) also stay on the same time all year, so their gap with India never moves.
Note the few weeks each spring and autumn when the US and UK are out of step. If your team spans London, New York and India, recurring meetings can drift by an hour during those weeks. Calendar tools handle this automatically when meetings are set in each person’s own time zone, but it is worth checking.
- US and Eastern Canada: clocks go forward on the second Sunday of March and back on the first Sunday of November. The gap with India narrows by an hour from March to November.
- UK: clocks go forward on the last Sunday of March and back on the last Sunday of October.
- New South Wales and Victoria (Sydney, Melbourne): daylight saving runs from the first Sunday of October to the first Sunday of April, so the gap with India widens by an hour during the Australian summer.
- British Columbia: since its March 2026 change, most of the province no longer changes its clocks. Some Canadian provinces and regions have changed their rules recently, so check the current local rules for each office.
Practical overlap windows
The windows below assume a client working roughly 09:00 to 18:00 local time and a team in India working roughly 10:00 to 19:00 IST. Adjust them to your own hours.
- UAE: about 7 hours 30 minutes of overlap — 09:00 to 17:30 in Dubai is 10:30 to 19:00 IST.
- Singapore and Perth: about 5 hours 30 minutes — 12:30 to 18:00 local time is 10:00 to 15:30 IST.
- UK in summer: about 5 hours 30 minutes — 09:00 to 14:30 in London is 13:30 to 19:00 IST. In winter about 4 hours 30 minutes — 09:00 to 13:30 in London is 14:30 to 19:00 IST.
- Sydney and Melbourne: about 3 hours 30 minutes from April to October (14:30 to 18:00 local is 10:00 to 13:30 IST), and about 2 hours 30 minutes from October to April (15:30 to 18:00 local is 10:00 to 12:30 IST).
- US and Canada Eastern: little or no overlap in normal hours. A 08:00 call in New York is 17:30 IST in daylight time and 18:30 IST in standard time.
- US Pacific and Vancouver: no overlap in normal hours. Live calls mean an early morning on one side or an evening on the other, so plan to work mainly in writing.
Async habits that make the distance work
With limited overlap, most work should move forward without a meeting. These habits keep it moving:
- Written updates at the end of each working day: what was done, what is next and what is blocked.
- Recorded demos, so you can review new work at a time that suits you and reply with comments.
- Ticket hygiene: every task has a clear description, acceptance criteria, an owner and a status that is kept current.
- A decision log: a shared document recording each decision, the date, who made it and why.
- Questions batched and sent before the other side’s day starts, with enough context to answer without a call.
- Use the overlap for discussion and decisions, not for status updates that could be written.
Handling urgent issues
Agree in writing what counts as urgent and how it is handled. Define a small number of severity levels, such as “service down”, “major feature broken” and “minor issue”, with the response expected for each during agreed support hours.
Name the contacts and the escalation path on both sides, and say how urgent issues are raised — usually a phone call or a dedicated channel rather than email. If you need cover outside the partner’s normal hours, ask about it directly and get the arrangement in writing. Keep runbooks and monitoring in place so your own staff can take first steps, such as restarting a service or rolling back a release, when the other team is offline.
Plan for public holidays on both sides
Indian public holidays include national days and major festivals. Several festivals follow the lunar calendar, so their dates move from year to year, and some holidays differ from state to state. Ask your partner for their holiday calendar at the start of each year and add it to your project plan.
Do the same in reverse. Share your own public holidays and planned closures so releases and reviews are not scheduled on days when nobody can respond. Remember too that India’s working day starts while it is still the previous evening in North America, so a Friday afternoon request from the US arrives in India on Saturday.
How TrueOrbis works with overseas clients
TrueOrbis is based in Delhi and works Monday to Saturday, 10:00 to 19:00 IST. We agree scope, timeline and fees in a written proposal before work starts. We deliver remotely, using access the client grants and controls, keep accounts and admin access in the client’s name and finish with a documented handover.
Common questions
Does India use daylight saving time?
No. India uses Indian Standard Time, UTC+5:30, all year. Any change in the time difference comes from the other country changing its clocks.
Why is the time difference with India not a whole number of hours?
Indian Standard Time is set at five and a half hours ahead of UTC, while most of the countries in this guide use whole-hour offsets. That is why the gaps end in 30 minutes.
What is the easiest way to avoid scheduling mistakes?
Create meetings in a shared calendar, with each person’s own time zone set correctly, and write times with the zone when you put them in messages, such as “15:00 IST / 09:30 GMT”.
Sources
Rules, fees and platform requirements change. Always confirm the current position on the official source before you apply.
- Daylight saving time rules in the US (opens in a new tab) — National Institute of Standards and Technology
- US time zones and UTC offsets (opens in a new tab) — US Naval Observatory
- When do the clocks change? (opens in a new tab) — GOV.UK
- Passage à l’heure avancée (Quebec time-change rules, UTC−4/UTC−5) (opens in a new tab) — Gouvernement du Québec
- Permanent daylight saving time in B.C. (opens in a new tab) — Government of British Columbia
- Daylight saving in NSW and other states (opens in a new tab) — NSW Department of Communities and Justice
- Draft Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules: IST at UTC+5:30 (opens in a new tab) — Press Information Bureau
Facts last checked: