US Time Zones for Remote Work and Cross Coast Meetings
Ever tried to schedule a meeting with teammates in New York and California? It feels like someone always has to dial in at 7 AM or 7 PM. The good news is there’s a sweet spot that works for everyone — if you know where to look.
Distributed US teams share a 4-hour overlap window from 11 AM ET to 3 PM ET (8 AM to 12 PM PT), and scheduling outside it pushes someone into early morning or late evening hours that kill attendance.
The overlap window
The continental US spans four time zones with a 3-hour gap between the coasts. The practical live-meeting window is:
- 11 AM to 3 PM ET = 8 AM to 12 PM PT
That 4-hour block is the only stretch where every US zone is in normal business hours. Outside it, someone pays a comfort tax:
- A 9 AM PT meeting is 12 PM ET — fine for both coasts but excludes anyone starting early.
- A 7 AM PT meeting is 10 AM ET — brutal for the West Coast.
- A 5 PM ET meeting is 2 PM PT — acceptable, but a 7 PM ET meeting is 4 PM PT and starts to crowd the East Coast evening.
The rule of thumb: anchor meetings between 11 AM and 3 PM ET, and rotate any unavoidable early or late slots so the same region isn’t always inconvenienced.
Avoid the cruelty zones
Two slots reliably wreck distributed meetings:
- 7 AM PT / 10 AM ET — West Coast team members dial in from cars and kitchens.
- 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT — East Coast team members bail for family dinner.
For teams spanning Hawaii or Alaska, the cruelty zone widens. A 2 PM ET call lands at 8 AM HST, which is workable, but anything after 5 PM ET pushes Hawaii past 11 AM and into the next morning for Asia-Pacific counterparts.
Arizona’s no-DST quirk
Most of Arizona stays on Mountain Standard Time year-round and skips daylight saving. From the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November, Phoenix is one hour behind Denver, not aligned with it:
- Winter: Phoenix and Denver both at UTC-7
- Summer: Denver at UTC-6 (MDT), Phoenix at UTC-7 (MST)
A “2 PM Mountain Time” meeting means 2 PM in Denver but 1 PM in Phoenix during DST. Teams with Arizona members should anchor to a specific city (“2 PM Phoenix time”) rather than the zone abbreviation during summer.
Actually, I once scheduled a meeting with a team in Arizona during summer and used “2 PM MT” in the invite. Half the team showed up at 1 PM and the other half at 2 PM — total chaos. Always specify the city when dealing with Arizona.
Daylight saving drift
DST in the US runs from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November. In 2026 those dates are March 8 and November 1.
Within the US, the ET-to-PT gap stays at 3 hours year-round, so domestic meetings don’t drift. The drift hits international calls: when the US springs forward in March but Europe hasn’t yet (or vice versa in late October/early November), a transatlantic standing meeting shifts by an hour for a few weeks. Calendar tools that auto-convert usually handle this, but recurring meetings set to a fixed UTC offset don’t.
Worked example: the Monday 9 AM PT standing call
A team sets a standing Monday call at 9 AM PT:
- During standard time (winter): 9 AM PT = 12 PM ET (EST)
- During daylight time (summer): 9 AM PT = 12 PM ET (EDT)
The ET clock time stays at 12 PM year-round because both zones shift together. The risk isn’t the ET side — it’s the Arizona and overseas participants. A Phoenix teammate joins at 10 AM in summer (not 9 AM), and a London teammate’s join time swings by an hour around each transition. Always confirm the zone each participant is in, not just the anchor.
Tools that help
- World Time Buddy and similar converters show multiple zones side by side with overlap highlighting.
- Calendar layers (Google Calendar world clock, Outlook time zones) display each invitee’s local time inline.
- Standing meeting descriptions should state the anchor city and time, e.g., “Mondays 2 PM ET / 11 AM PT,” so no one has to convert.
Recording and async fallback
For anything outside the 11 AM-3 PM ET window, default to asynchronous: record the meeting, post notes, and use a shared doc for decisions. Live attendance drops sharply outside the overlap, and a recording reaches the people who couldn’t justify a 6 AM or 7 PM dial-in.
Does this mean you should never schedule meetings outside the overlap? Not necessarily — sometimes it’s unavoidable. But when you do, make sure to rotate the burden so no one team bears it all the time.
For reliable conversions across all six US zones including the Arizona exception, use the US Time Zone Converter and review the zone basics in our guide to how to read US time zones.
