Time difference between Los Angeles 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 Los Angeles goes forward on the second Sunday in March and back on the first Sunday in November and Tokyo does not change its clocks.

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

About Los Angeles and Tokyo

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.

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 16 hours actually costs you

There is no shared working hour at all. Nine to five in Los Angeles is 1:00 AM to 9:00 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 5:00 PM in Los Angeles, which is 9:00 AM 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 16 hours the two are far enough apart that the date stops matching. Midday in Los Angeles is 4:00 AM the next day in Tokyo. "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 Tokyo do not overlap at all. With 16 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

Tokyo

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How far apart Los Angeles and Tokyo are

The shortest path over the Earth's surface between the two is 8,819 km (5,480 miles). Flown along that line, an airliner at cruising speed takes roughly 11 hours 10 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 16 hours of clock, which is where jet lag comes from: the body shifts by about an hour a day, so 16 hours takes most people 16 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.

Los Angeles to Tokyo, hour by hour

On the usual gap of 16 hours.

Frequently asked questions