Recurring Meetings and Daylight Saving Time: Why Your Call Moved

Last updated October 13, 2026

Every recurring meeting belongs to one time zone, usually the zone of the person who created it. Calendar apps keep it at the same clock time there. When that place changes its clocks, or when your own city does, the meeting can land an hour earlier or later on your calendar even though nobody touched it.

Every meeting has a home time zone

When you create a repeating event, Google Calendar and Outlook save the time together with a time zone, such as "9:00 a.m., America/New_York, every Wednesday". Each week the app works out what 9 a.m. in New York is, using the time zone rules of that week. In New York the meeting never moves. For a guest in London or Sydney, the app converts that New York time into their own clock, and the result changes whenever the gap between the two cities changes.

That is the correct behavior. The calendar is doing what the organizer asked. The surprise comes from the guest's side, because the guest did not choose the anchor city and may not know which one it is. Open the event and look at the time zone shown next to the time, or ask the organizer which city's clock the series follows.

A 9 a.m. New York meeting, week by week

The table follows one weekly meeting set at 9 a.m. in New York through autumn and spring. Each row starts on a clock change somewhere in the group, and the bold cells are the times that moved on that date. It is calculated from the time zone database.

Los Angeles moves with New York, so its time never changes. Phoenix stays on standard time all year, so the meeting moves for Phoenix only on the US dates. London sees it move twice in autumn, first when the UK changes and again a week later when the US does. New Delhi has no daylight saving time, so it moves only when New York changes. Sydney changes its clocks in the opposite season, so the meeting moves there in October and again in April.

The weeks when the most meetings move

US daylight saving time starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. In the UK and the EU it starts on the last Sunday in March and ends on the last Sunday in October. Australia's southeast starts on the first Sunday in October and ends on the first Sunday in April. These dates never line up, so a team spread over the US, Europe and Australia has several short periods each year when the usual gap is off by an hour.

• In March the US changes two or three weeks before Europe. A meeting anchored in New York moves an hour earlier for London and Berlin, then back to the usual time when Europe changes.
• At the end of October Europe changes one week before the US, and the same thing happens for that week.
• In early October and early April, Sydney changes while the US and Europe do not.

The direction depends on the anchor. If the same weekly call is set at 2 p.m. in London, the New York side sees it at 9 a.m. most weeks and at 10 a.m. in the weeks when the gap is four hours. The UK and US time difference guide and the US and Europe guide list those weeks for each year.

Meetings set in UTC

Some teams set shared meetings in UTC so that no single city owns them. UTC never changes, so the meeting moves for every participant who uses daylight saving time. A 14:00 UTC call is 10 a.m. in New York and 3 p.m. in London in summer, and 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. in winter. That can be fine for a team spread evenly around the world, because nobody gets a fixed time and nobody is always the one who moves. For a team mostly in one country it usually causes more confusion than a local anchor.

When a country changes its rules

Calendar apps get their time zone rules from the IANA time zone database, which is updated when a government changes its clocks. If a country moves its dates or drops daylight saving time, events created before the update can show the wrong time for a while. Google documents this case for Calendar, and says a repeating event with edited single occurrences may need to be fixed by hand. When you hear that a country is changing its rules, check the meetings that involve it after the change takes effect. The guide to places that stopped changing their clocks lists recent changes.

How to keep a team on time

• Choose the anchor city on purpose. For a team with most people in one office, anchor the meeting there, so the smaller group does the adjusting.
• Name the city in the invitation, for example "Wednesdays at 9 a.m. New York time". Abbreviations such as EST and GMT are often used all year even though they only apply in winter, so a city name is clearer.
• Write two times in the description, such as "9:00 a.m. ET / 2:00 p.m. UK", and add a note about the weeks when the second time differs.
• Send a reminder a few days before each change date. One line saying "next week this call is at 1 p.m. in London" saves a missed meeting.
• If a meeting is at the edge of someone's day, such as 6 a.m. in Los Angeles or near midnight in Sydney, check that the change does not push it outside working hours.

To see what a weekly time looks like on a given date, open the Meeting Planner with New York, London and Sydney and pick a date in the change weeks. The daylight saving time guide has the change dates for each region, and the guide to scheduling meetings across time zones covers picking the first time.

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