Time difference between London and Tokyo

The gap is not the same all year

Every converter gives one number for this pair. That number is right for most of the year and wrong for part of it, because London goes forward on the last Sunday in March and back on the last Sunday in October and Tokyo does not change its clocks.

Tokyo stays put all year while London moves, so a meeting fixed in Tokyo's calendar shifts by an hour twice a year at London's end.

About London and Tokyo

London is the reference the rest of the system is measured from: Greenwich sits inside the city, and UTC±0 is its winter time. It does not stay there — Britain moves to UTC+1 for seven months of the year, which is why "London is GMT" is wrong more often than it is right.

Japan is UTC+9 with no daylight saving anywhere, and has not had it since the occupation ended in 1952. The whole country runs one zone and the business day starts early, so the useful overlap with Europe is Japan's late afternoon.

What 8 hours actually costs you

There is no shared working hour at all. Nine to five in London is 5:00 PM to 1:00 AM in Tokyo. Somebody has to be outside their working day, and the only question is who — so the useful thing is to decide that once rather than rediscover it every time.

The closest the two working days come is 9:00 AM in London, which is 5:00 PM in Tokyo — both inside office hours, just barely. That is the slot to use, and it is the one people who work this pair already default to.

At 8 hours the two are far enough apart that the date stops matching. Midday in London is 8:00 PM the same day in Tokyo, but the ends of the working day do cross. "Tomorrow morning" means different things to the two of you, and a deadline given without a date attached will be missed by one side or the other.

When they can both be at their desks

Nine-to-five in London and nine-to-five in Tokyo do not overlap at all. With 8 hours between them, one side is always outside working hours, and the practical question is which side takes the early start or the late finish rather than when to meet.

London

Tokyo

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How far apart London and Tokyo are

The shortest path over the Earth's surface between the two is 9,559 km (5,939 miles). Flown along that line, an airliner at cruising speed takes roughly 12 hours in the air — actual routings add to it, and whether a nonstop service exists depends on the airlines rather than the distance.

Over that distance you cross 8 hours of clock, which is where jet lag comes from: the body shifts by about an hour a day, so 8 hours takes most people 8 days or so to absorb. Flying east to Tokyo is the harder direction — you lose the hours and have to fall asleep earlier than your body wants.

London to Tokyo, hour by hour

On the usual gap of 8 hours.

Frequently asked questions