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Working hours by country

Standard office hours and the working week for 53 countries, from published labour conventions. 45 of them differ from the Monday-to-Friday nine-to-five that most scheduling tools assume, and 8 do not take the weekend on Saturday and Sunday at all. Every working-hours overlap on this site is computed from these figures rather than from a default.

Where the assumption breaks

These 45 countries do not run 09:00–17:00, Monday to Friday. Ordered by how far they depart from it.

Countries that do keep a nine-to-five

Checked, and they match the default. Worth stating: "we verified it is nine to five" and "we assumed nine to five" are different claims, and only one of them is on this list.

AustraliaBelgiumCanadaGreeceIrelandNetherlandsUnited KingdomUnited States

Why we keep this at all

Because every overlap on this site is computed from it. When a page says Lisbon and New York share four hours, that four comes from Portugal working 09:00–18:00 and the United States 09:00–17:00 — not from assuming both keep the same day. Change the profile and every figure on the site changes with it, which is the reason these pages exist rather than being a table in a blog post.

The countries we hold no profile for fall back to a Monday-to-Friday nine-to-five, and the pages that use it say so rather than implying we checked. That is why this hub lists 53 countries and not all 141: an entry here means someone looked it up.

Sources and last check

Times, offsets and sun positions on this page are computed live from the IANA timezone database and the NOAA solar algorithm, so they do not depend on the review dates below.

Working hours and weekend days for 55 countries
Source: Published national labour conventions and government working-hours guidance. Last checked, reviewed every 12 months.
Not covered:A national convention, not any given employer. Countries not listed fall back to a nine-to-five, Monday to Friday default, and pages say so rather than implying we checked.
141 countries: representative IANA zone and whether they observe DST
Source: Generated by scripts/build-countries.mjs from Intl.DisplayNames and the tzdata shipped with Node. Nothing typed by hand.. Last checked, reviewed every 6 months.
Not covered:13 of them span more than one zone we hold; for those, `iana` is their largest city's zone rather than the whole country's.

FAQ

Which countries do not have a Saturday and Sunday weekend?

8 of the 53 we hold: Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia. Most run Sunday to Thursday, resting Friday and Saturday. A meeting invite that looks harmless on a European calendar can land squarely on a day off.

Where do these figures come from?

Published national labour conventions and government working-hours guidance. They describe a national norm for office work, not any given employer, and not shift work or retail. Statutory hours are facts rather than a licensed dataset, so there is nothing to licence — but there is a review date, and the audit fails the build once it is overdue.

Why does this matter for scheduling?

Because converting clocks is not the same as finding a time you are both at work. Norway finishes at four and Portugal at six; assume nine-to-five for both and you get an answer that is an hour out in each direction. Over a recurring meeting that is the difference between a window that works and one that quietly eats someone's evening.