Time difference between Los Angeles and London

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 Los Angeles goes forward on the second Sunday in March and back on the first Sunday in November and London goes forward on the last Sunday in March and back on the last Sunday in October.

Both change their clocks and both are in the northern hemisphere, but not on the same weekend — Los Angeles goes forward on the second Sunday in March and London on the last Sunday in March. For the days in between, the gap is neither party's expected figure, and a standing meeting silently moves by an hour. That mismatch is a common cause of a missed international call.

About Los Angeles and London

Los Angeles is UTC−8 in winter and UTC−7 from March to November. California voted in 2018 to move to permanent daylight saving and has not been able to: the change needs an act of Congress, which has not come.

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.

What 8 hours actually costs you

There is no shared working hour at all. Nine to five in Los Angeles is 5:00 PM to 1:00 AM in London. 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 Los Angeles, which is 5:00 PM in London — 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 Los Angeles is 8:00 PM the same day in London, 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 Los Angeles and nine-to-five in London 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.

Los Angeles

London

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How far apart Los Angeles and London are

The shortest path over the Earth's surface between the two is 8,756 km (5,440 miles). Flown along that line, an airliner at cruising speed takes roughly 11 hours 5 minutes 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 London is the harder direction — you lose the hours and have to fall asleep earlier than your body wants.

Los Angeles to London, hour by hour

On the usual gap of 8 hours.

Frequently asked questions