CET to IST time

For European teams, the important hour is when Indian colleagues go home. A typical Indian office day ends between 6:00 and 7:00 PM IST, which is 2:30–3:30 PM in Central Europe in summer and 1:30–2:30 PM in winter. Put anything that needs an Indian answer before lunch in Europe; a request sent at 4:00 PM in Amsterdam lands at 8:30 PM in India in winter and is handled the next morning.

The morning works the other way: when Europe starts at 9:00 AM, India is already halfway through its day, so daily stand-ups with Indian teams usually sit at 9:00 or 10:00 AM CET.

CET is UTC+1 and is used in winter; from the last Sunday of March to the last Sunday of October the same countries use CEST, UTC+2. People often keep writing "CET" in summer, and this page follows the actual clock in Paris, which is why the India gap changes by an hour twice a year even though India itself never changes.

Switzerland, also on Central European Time, has a long association with Indian cinema: Bollywood films shot in the Swiss Alps made Interlaken and the Jungfrau region a favorite with Indian tourists. A flight from Zurich to Mumbai takes around eight and a half hours. For more pairs, the time zone converter covers 30 zones.