Time difference between New York and Dubai

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 New York goes forward on the second Sunday in March and back on the first Sunday in November and Dubai does not change its clocks.

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

About New York and Dubai

New York is UTC−5 in winter and UTC−4 from March to November, and it changes clocks on different weekends from Europe — a fortnight in March and a week in autumn when the transatlantic gap is an hour off what everyone expects.

The UAE keeps UTC+4 all year with no daylight saving, and the working week runs Monday to Friday only since 2022 — before that it was Sunday to Thursday, which made the overlap with Europe a different problem entirely.

What 8 hours actually costs you

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

New York

Dubai

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How far apart New York and Dubai are

The shortest path over the Earth's surface between the two is 11,008 km (6,840 miles). Flown along that line, an airliner at cruising speed takes roughly 13 hours 45 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 Dubai is the harder direction — you lose the hours and have to fall asleep earlier than your body wants.

New York to Dubai, hour by hour

On the usual gap of 8 hours.

Frequently asked questions