ClockOrbit

Time zone comparison

BST vs JST time zone comparison

British Summer Time (BST, UTC+00:00) vs Japan Standard Time (JST, UTC+09:00). Right now BST is 9h behind JST. BST is used in London, Birmingham and Manchester while JST covers Tokyo, Osaka and Yokohama. Use the 24-hour grid below to find a meeting slot both sides will tolerate.

Live clocks

 

Right now in BST

--:--:--
UTC

 

Right now in JST

--:--:--
UTC

Heads up: these zones diverge on daylight saving.

BST observes DST while JST does not, so the gap shifts by an hour twice a year. In January the difference is 9h, in July it is 8h. If you are scheduling across the spring or autumn transitions, double-check the date.

Heads up: BST is only observed in summer.

No standard 9-to-5 overlap today between BST and JST. Either side will need to take the call outside core hours. See the table below for the closest workable slots.

24-hour comparison

Each row is one hour. Green rows are when both sides are inside 9 AM to 5 PM.

Convert exact time →
24-hour wall-clock comparison between British Summer Time and Japan Standard Time, with business-hour overlap highlighted.
HourBST (British Summer Time)JST (Japan Standard Time)Overlap
12 AM00:00Mon09:00MonJST only
1 AM01:00Mon10:00MonJST only
2 AM02:00Mon11:00MonJST only
3 AM03:00Mon12:00MonJST only
4 AM04:00Mon13:00MonJST only
5 AM05:00Mon14:00MonJST only
6 AM06:00Mon15:00MonJST only
7 AM07:00Mon16:00MonJST only
8 AM08:00Mon17:00MonNo overlap
9 AM09:00Mon18:00MonBST only
10 AM10:00Mon19:00MonBST only
11 AM11:00Mon20:00MonBST only
12 PM12:00Mon21:00MonBST only
1 PM13:00Mon22:00MonBST only
2 PM14:00Mon23:00MonBST only
3 PM15:00Mon00:00TueBST only
4 PM16:00Mon01:00TueBST only
5 PM17:00Mon02:00TueNo overlap
6 PM18:00Mon03:00TueNo overlap
7 PM19:00Mon04:00TueNo overlap
8 PM20:00Mon05:00TueNo overlap
9 PM21:00Mon06:00TueNo overlap
10 PM22:00Mon07:00TueNo overlap
11 PM23:00Mon08:00TueNo overlap

How BST and JST compare

British Summer Time (BST) sits at UTC+00:00 today, while Japan Standard Time (JST) is at UTC+09:00. The current gap is 9 hours, with BST behind JST. In practical terms, if your morning starts at 9 AM in London, your counterpart in Tokyo is seeing 18:00 on their own watch at that exact moment.

BST is the working clock for London, Birmingham and Manchester. BST also refers to Bangladesh Standard Time (Asia/Dhaka). UK usage dominates search volume. JST covers Tokyo, Osaka and Yokohama. If your team is split between these two regions, the table above is the quickest way to spot the daily overlap window without doing the offset arithmetic in your head.

Daylight saving matters here. British Summer Time shifts forward an hour on the second Sunday of March (US) or the last Sunday of March (Europe) and back on the first Sunday of November or last Sunday of October. Japan Standard Time stays on a fixed offset year-round. The IANA tzdata baked into this page handles every transition automatically, so the table reflects the correct wall-clock times for today's date. For dates further out, use the converter linked above and pick the target date explicitly.

Common scheduling traps are easy to avoid here. Pick a wall-clock time on one side, read the matching wall-clock on the other from the table, and write both into the calendar invite, never just the difference. If the meeting falls in the week of a DST changeover and one of these zones shifts, the absolute clock will drift by an hour from what the recipient expects. The table is computed for today's date, so for a future meeting open the converter linked above and pick the exact date.

One last note for asynchronous teams: business-hour overlap is the wrong metric for handoff workflows. If you operate on a follow-the-sun model, you actually want zero overlap, with one team logging off as the other starts. BST and JST differ by 9 hours, which is close to an ideal handoff window.

Frequently asked questions

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