Time difference between Vancouver and Dublin

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 Vancouver goes forward on the second Sunday in March and back on the first Sunday in November and Dublin 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 — Vancouver goes forward on the second Sunday in March and Dublin 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 Vancouver and Dublin

Vancouver keeps the same clock as Los Angeles and Seattle and changes on the same dates. British Columbia legislated for permanent daylight saving in 2019, conditional on the US west coast doing the same, and is still waiting.

Ireland is the only country whose summer time is legally the standard and whose winter time is the deviation — Irish Standard Time is UTC+1 and the clocks go *back* to UTC in October. The result is identical to Britain's and the legal description is inverted, which occasionally matters in contracts.

What 8 hours actually costs you

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

Vancouver

Dublin

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How far apart Vancouver and Dublin are

The shortest path over the Earth's surface between the two is 7,160 km (4,449 miles). Flown along that line, an airliner at cruising speed takes roughly 9 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 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 Dublin is the harder direction — you lose the hours and have to fall asleep earlier than your body wants.

Vancouver to Dublin, hour by hour

On the usual gap of 8 hours.

Frequently asked questions