Best meeting time between Australia and USA

Australia and the USA are roughly half a world apart, but with a little planning you can almost always find a window that doesn't ruin anyone's morning. The practical "follow-the-sun" slot for AU-US meetings is the Australian morning vs. the US afternoon (the day before). Here's the full picture across the major cities.

The time zones in play

Australia has three main mainland time zones, with daylight saving observed only in the south-east:

• AEST/AEDT — Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart, Canberra (UTC+10 / UTC+11). Brisbane stays on AEST year-round.
• ACST/ACDT — Adelaide, Darwin (UTC+9:30 / UTC+10:30). Darwin stays on ACST year-round.
• AWST — Perth (UTC+8). No daylight saving.

The continental United States has four:

• ET — New York, Atlanta, Miami (UTC−5 / UTC−4 with DST).
• CT — Chicago, Dallas, Houston (UTC−6 / UTC−5 with DST).
• MT — Denver, Salt Lake City (UTC−7 / UTC−6 with DST). Most of Arizona stays on MST.
• PT — Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle (UTC−8 / UTC−7 with DST).

Best meeting windows by US city

These windows assume Sydney is on AEDT (Australian summer) and the US is on standard time, the most common winter mix from December to March. In other months the slots shift by one or two hours but the shape is the same.

Two patterns jump out. First, every AU-US call lands on a different calendar day in each country — "Wednesday morning in Sydney" is "Tuesday afternoon in the US". Second, the West Coast is the friendly side: 08:00 Sydney is a comfortable 13:00 in Los Angeles, but the same time hits New York at 16:00 — tolerable, but firmly in the late-afternoon slump.

Which side should bend?

For one-off calls, the side with fewer participants usually flexes. For ongoing weekly meetings, alternate: one week takes the early start in Sydney, the next week takes the late afternoon in New York. If your team includes both East and West Coast US, anchor on the East Coast: a 16:00 ET start is 13:00 PT — comfortable for both — and 08:00 Sydney the next day.

Watch the DST mismatch

The US enters DST in mid-March; Australia leaves DST in early April. For about three weeks each year the offset between Sydney and New York drops by two hours from its winter peak. A meeting pinned to "16:00 New York" will appear at "07:00 Sydney" instead of the usual 08:00 or 09:00. Always book recurring meetings against a specific time zone, not a fixed UTC offset.

Perth and Brisbane: the quiet outliers

Brisbane (Queensland) doesn't observe DST, so during Australian summer it sits an hour behind Sydney. Perth (Western Australia) is permanently three hours behind Sydney's winter time and four hours behind in summer. For Perth-US calls, the US East Coast becomes nearly unreachable; Pacific Time and Mountain Time are the only practical options.

FAQ

Related guides

• San Francisco to Sydney
• Australia to UK converter
• Best time to schedule global meetings
• How to plan a multi-zone meeting