Convert CEST (Central European Summer Time) to ICT (Indochina Time)

Best time to schedule a meeting

Standard 9–5 working hours overlap for 3 hours: 9:00 AM–12:00 PM CEST (2:00 PM–5:00 PM ICT). Schedule meetings inside that window.

CEST to ICT conversion table

About CEST

Central European Summer Time (CEST) is UTC+2. It is used in Paris, Berlin, Madrid and Rome from late March to late October.

Central European Summer Time is UTC+2, in force from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October. The European changeover happens at 01:00 UTC everywhere simultaneously, unlike the US which changes at 2am local time in each zone — so Europe's internal offsets never break during the transition, while North America's briefly do.

About ICT

Indochina Time (ICT) is UTC+7. It is used in Bangkok, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta.

Indochina Time is UTC+7, covering Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, with no daylight saving in any of them. Bangkok and Hanoi keep the same clock, which makes the region unusually simple to schedule across — the complication is only ever with the countries around it, since Myanmar is at UTC+6:30 and Malaysia at UTC+8.

Does this gap change with the seasons?

This gap is seasonal. The abbreviations themselves are fixed offsets, but the region on CEST switches to CET (UTC+1) from late October to late March. So the 5-hour figure on this page is correct for the part of the year when both places are actually on these abbreviations, and changes by an hour outside it.

ICT does not shift, so the whole change comes from one side. A recurring meeting fixed in ICT will appear to move by an hour for everyone on the other side, twice a year, without anyone changing anything.

This is the reason scheduling systems store an IANA zone such as Region/City rather than an offset or an abbreviation: the zone knows its own rules and the offset does not.

Frequently asked questions