USA to India Meeting Planner
Compare New York, San Francisco, and India at once - then find a slot that avoids a 3 am wake-up for anyone.
How to plan a USA–India meeting
- 1The planner loads New York, San Francisco, and India (IST) together. Scan the current times: New York and San Francisco are 3 hours apart, while India is roughly 9.5–13.5 hours ahead of the US coasts depending on which coast and the time of year.
- 2Choose a date and drag the slider to the early morning on the US side. Watch India's row - a slot around 8–9 am New York time lands at around 6:30–7:30 pm IST, which is the closest thing to a mutual business hour for all three cities.
- 3Look at the color bands in all three rows simultaneously. If India shows amber (early evening) while both US coasts show green or light amber (morning), that is the best available window without anyone joining in the middle of the night.
- 4Consider alternating the meeting time between weeks to distribute the inconvenience. The planner lets you quickly compare different time options - just move the slider and note what times each city shows before committing.
- 5Click Create Meeting and choose your calendar platform. The invite is created with the correct local time for the base timezone; participants in other cities will see it converted to their local time if their calendar supports it.
The US and India - a wide gap with no easy answer
With New York 9.5–10.5 hours behind India and San Francisco 12.5–13.5 hours behind, there is no window where all three cities are fully within 9-to-5 business hours simultaneously. The closest approximation is an 8 am Eastern start - which is 5 am Pacific (early but before dawn rather than the middle of the night) and around 6:30 pm IST (end of India's business day). This is the de-facto standard for US–India all-hands calls, and both sides accept it as the least-bad option.
One practical approach is to rotate who bears the inconvenience. A team might schedule one week's call at 8 am ET / 6:30 pm IST and the next at 8 pm IST / 9:30 am ET (which is fine for India but 6:30 am PT, still manageable for San Francisco). The planner makes it easy to verify the local times for any schedule before you commit - just drag the slider and confirm every city shows an acceptable hour.
Frequently asked questions
India Standard Time (IST, UTC+5:30) is 9 hours 30 minutes ahead of New York (EST) in winter or 10 hours 30 minutes ahead during EDT. From San Francisco the gap is 12 hours 30 minutes in winter (PST) or 13 hours 30 minutes in summer (PDT). India does not observe daylight saving, so only the US clocks change.
The least painful window for all three cities is roughly 8–9 am Eastern / 5–6 am Pacific / 6:30–7:30 pm IST. This puts New York in the early morning, San Francisco very early, and India at the end of its business day. Many teams rotate the early start between coasts to share the inconvenience.
India stays on IST (UTC+5:30) all year. The offset changes because the US observes daylight saving time, advancing clocks by one hour in spring and reverting in autumn. This shifts the US–India gap by one hour twice a year without any change on the Indian side.
The overlap is narrow and requires compromise. If India starts its day at 8 am IST, that is 9:30 pm or 10:30 pm the previous evening in New York - clearly impractical. The only realistic overlap window is when the US starts very early (before 9 am ET) while India finishes late (after 6 pm IST), or when teams agree to use end-of-day India with early morning US.
Yes. Once you have found a meeting time using the slider, click Create Meeting. You can open Google Calendar or Outlook Web pre-filled with the event, send a Teams invite, or download a .ics file to import into any calendar application including Apple Calendar and the Outlook desktop app.