Time Difference Between London and San Francisco
San Francisco is 8h behind London when both cities are on standard time and when both are on daylight saving time. San Francisco is 7h behind London during the weeks when one city has changed its clocks and the other has not.
London clocks move forward on the last Sunday of March and back on the last Sunday of October. San Francisco clocks move forward on the second Sunday of March and back on the first Sunday of November. The figures above cover each part of the year. They do not come from the offset on the day the site was built. The live clocks use the current time.
Working Hours Overlap
For each hour of London's working day (9:00-18:00), here is the corresponding local time in San Francisco. Rows highlighted green fall within standard working hours (9:00-18:00) in both cities. Each block is one part of the year, so the table does not change with the day this page was built.
8h behind (standard time and daylight saving time)
| London | San Francisco | Both working hours? |
|---|---|---|
| 9 AM | 1 AM | No |
| 10 AM | 2 AM | No |
| 11 AM | 3 AM | No |
| 12 PM | 4 AM | No |
| 1 PM | 5 AM | No |
| 2 PM | 6 AM | No |
| 3 PM | 7 AM | No |
| 4 PM | 8 AM | No |
| 5 PM | 9 AM | Yes |
| 6 PM | 10 AM | No |
7h behind (daylight saving time in San Francisco, while London is on standard time)
| London | San Francisco | Both working hours? |
|---|---|---|
| 9 AM | 2 AM | No |
| 10 AM | 3 AM | No |
| 11 AM | 4 AM | No |
| 12 PM | 5 AM | No |
| 1 PM | 6 AM | No |
| 2 PM | 7 AM | No |
| 3 PM | 8 AM | No |
| 4 PM | 9 AM | Yes |
| 5 PM | 10 AM | Yes |
| 6 PM | 11 AM | No |
Best Time to Meet
8h behind (standard time and daylight saving time)
- 5 PM-6 PM in London (9 AM-10 AM in San Francisco) works for both sides. It falls within 9 AM-6 PM in both time zones.
7h behind (daylight saving time in San Francisco, while London is on standard time)
- 4 PM-6 PM in London (9 AM-11 AM in San Francisco) works for both sides. It falls within 9 AM-6 PM in both time zones.
How the Difference Changes
The two cities do not change their clocks on the same dates, so the gap is not one number. The rules are above. The dates for the year you are reading this page load below.
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Working Across London and San Francisco
London stays late or San Francisco starts early. There is no middle. For most of the year San Francisco is eight hours behind, so 8 AM on the west coast is 4 PM in London and 10 AM is 6 PM. That two-hour band is the meeting. Push it to 11 AM in San Francisco and London is at dinner. Push it earlier than 8 AM and you are asking California to dial in before the office has coffee. The London side owns the constraint, because their day is the one that is ending.
The United States moves first in spring and last in autumn, so the gap drops from eight hours to seven between the second Sunday of March and the last Sunday of March, and again between the last Sunday of October and the first Sunday of November. Those are the kinder weeks, not the worse ones. At seven hours, 9 AM in San Francisco is 4 PM in London instead of 5 PM, and the overlap grows by an hour. A recurring invite anchored in London holds London's hour and slides later for California during those weeks. One anchored in San Francisco slides earlier for London. The empty room usually happens on the second switch, when the gap snaps back to eight and people show up at the hour they just got used to.
The nonstop is about eleven hours. Eastbound is the hard direction: a red-eye out of San Francisco lands in London around breakfast with eight hours still to absorb, and the first morning is a bad time for anything you would mind getting wrong. Westbound gives the hours back. You arrive in the afternoon, stay awake until a normal California bedtime, and most people are usable the next day. Teams that fly this often keep the arrival day for reading and put the real meetings on day two.
Guides for this corridor
- A worked week for San Francisco, Berlin, and Singapore
There is no hour when all three cities are inside a normal workday. A concrete weekly design: who meets live, who reads notes, and which local times hold still between January and July.
- The weeks when the US and Europe are an hour closer
How the spring and autumn mismatch weeks change a New York to London or Berlin meeting, which side of the invite moves, and what to check when the gap snaps back.
- Which time zone should own the calendar invite
The event's time zone holds one city's local hour and moves everyone else. How that choice plays out for London and New York, and how to stop a click on your own calendar from making it for you.
London
London uses the Europe/London time zone. Standard time is UTC, and daylight saving time is UTC+1.
San Francisco
San Francisco uses the America/Los_Angeles time zone. Standard time is UTC-8, and daylight saving time is UTC-7.