Time zone overlap calculator
A Brazilian engineer working ordinary local hours — 9 AM to 6 PM, UTC−3 — shares 7–8 hours a day with a 9-to-5 team on U.S. Eastern time, 6–7 with Central, 5–6 with Mountain and 4–5 with Pacific. An engineer in India on ordinary local hours shares zero with any of them. Brazil does not observe daylight saving, so only the U.S. side moves.
9 AM – 6 PM in Brazil. Nobody changes anything.
10 AM – 7 PM in Brazil
Brazil is 1–2 hours ahead of U.S. Eastern time.
The second number is not free. Getting a Pacific-time team to six or seven hours means the engineer finishes at 8 PM their time, every day. We agree that explicitly with the person and it does not change your price — but it is a real thing to ask of someone, and a vendor who quotes you the shifted number without saying so is selling you a working condition they have not negotiated.
Every U.S. zone, calculated
| Your time zone | Brazil is ahead | Ordinary hours | If they shift |
|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. Eastern | 1–2 h | 7–8 hours | 8 hours (10 AM – 7 PM BRT) |
| U.S. Central | 2–3 h | 6–7 hours | 8 hours (11 AM – 8 PM BRT) |
| U.S. Mountain | 3–4 h | 5–6 hours | 7–8 hours (11 AM – 8 PM BRT) |
| U.S. Pacific | 4–5 h | 4–5 hours | 6–7 hours (11 AM – 8 PM BRT) |
Brazil versus every other option
Hours of daily overlap with a 9-to-5 U.S. workday, with everyone on ordinary local working hours (9 AM to 6 PM). Zero means the overlap only exists if someone works nights.
| Your zone | Brazil | Colombia | Mexico | Costa Rica | Argentina | Chile (DST) | Poland (DST) | India | Philippines | Vietnam |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. Eastern | 7–8 | 7–8 | 6–7 | 6–7 | 7–8 | 7–8 | 2–4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| U.S. Central | 6–7 | 8 | 7–8 | 7–8 | 6–7 | 6–8 | 1–3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| U.S. Mountain | 5–6 | 7–8 | 8 | 8 | 5–6 | 5–7 | 0–2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| U.S. Pacific | 4–5 | 6–7 | 7–8 | 7–8 | 4–5 | 4–6 | 0–1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Every cell is a range across the whole year, because both clocks can move: the U.S. changes twice, and the countries marked (DST) change too. Chile is the interesting one — its daylight saving is southern-hemisphere, so its clock moves the opposite way from the U.S. and the gap opens and closes twice a year in both directions. Countries with no daylight saving show a range only because the U.S. side moves.
Read the table honestly, including where Brazil loses. Brazil is strongest on Eastern, where it ties Colombia and Chile. West of that it does not win: Colombia, Mexico and Costa Rica all share more hours with Central, Mountain and Pacific, because they sit closer to those clocks. Argentina matches Brazil exactly. We publish that rather than hide it — a comparison table that never lets anyone else win is not a comparison table, it is a brochure.
What the column does not measure, and what we would weigh next: how deep the senior market is at the level you are hiring, English at that level rather than on average, whether the schedule quietly assumes someone works nights, and whether the clock moves at all — Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica and Argentina hold still while the U.S. changes twice a year, and Chile moves the opposite way. If your team is on Pacific time and overlap is the only thing that matters to you, the honest answer is that this table does not point at Brazil.
Frequently asked questions
How many hours do Brazilian developers overlap with U.S. teams?
Seven to eight hours with Eastern time, six to seven with Central, five to six with Mountain and four to five with Pacific — all on ordinary Brazilian working hours, with nobody shifting their day.
Does Brazil observe daylight saving time?
No. Brazil abolished it in 2019 and stays on UTC−3 all year, so the gap with the U.S. changes only when the U.S. changes its clocks, in March and November.
Why does India show zero overlap?
Because the calculation uses ordinary working hours on both sides. India is UTC+5:30; a 9-to-6 local day there ends before a 9-to-5 U.S. Eastern day begins. Any overlap has to come out of somebody’s evening or night, which is why offshore delivery in that region is built on night shifts.
The full time zone guide, with scheduling rules that hold up →
Use this chart on your own site
If you are writing about distributed teams and need the picture, take it. Paste one line where you want it; the chart stays correct because it is drawn from the same functions as the table above, not saved as an image. The only thing we ask is that you leave the credit line under it.
Click a box to select it. Four separate charts because the overlap genuinely differs by zone — embedding the Eastern one on a page about a Pacific team would be wrong, and wrong is worse than absent.