12pm in Tokyo is 5am in Zürich

Tokyo is 7 hours ahead of Zürich. Tokyo runs on Asia/Tokyo (UTC+9); Zürich runs on Europe/Zurich (UTC+2). The difference is measured right now; it can shift by one hour during daylight-saving-time transitions.

Zürich observes daylight saving time — shifting between CET (UTC+1) and CEST (UTC+2) — while Tokyo stays on JST (UTC+9) year-round. The difference is 8 hours in Zürich’s winter and 7 hours in Zürich’s summer. Transitions happen in late March and late October for most Northern-Hemisphere DST zones, and late September/early April for Southern-Hemisphere ones — check the current date against the city’s DST schedule before anchoring a meeting at the edge of those windows.

Standard 9-to-5 business hours in Tokyo and Zürich overlap for roughly 1 hour a day. That window lands at 16:00–17:00 in Tokyo and 09:00–10:00 in Zürich. Teams with real-time coordination needs anchor cross-city calls inside it: long enough to cover handovers, short enough that it forces crisp agendas. Outside that window, async is the default — shared docs, recorded updates, and scheduled follow-ups rather than live meetings.

When planning recurring meetings across Tokyo and Zürich, pin them to one city’s local time rather than UTC or the other city’s clock. That way, the meeting time stays stable for the person anchoring the schedule, and the other side absorbs the one-hour drift during DST transitions. The alternative — a meeting pinned to the non-DST city — means the DST city sees the meeting time “move” twice a year, which is how recurring calendar invites end up at 7am on someone’s calendar in October.