Work across time zones
Deadlines across time zones: EOD, midnight and “Anywhere on Earth”
“Please send it by end of day Friday” sounds clear until the sender is in New York and you are in Bangalore. Here is what the common deadline phrases really mean, how Anywhere on Earth works, and a simple format that nobody can misread.
Key takeaways
- “EOD” means the end of the working day of whoever set the deadline, unless they say otherwise. Ask, or assume their city.
- Avoid “midnight”. Write 23:59 or 11:59 PM, with a date and a city.
- Anywhere on Earth (AoE) is UTC−12: the deadline is met as long as that date has not ended anywhere on Earth. It closes at 11:59 UTC the next day.
- The clearest format is: day, date, time, city, plus one or two local equivalents.
On this page
What “end of day” means
EOD (end of day) and COB (close of business) normally mean the end of the working day where the person who set the deadline works, typically 5 PM or 6 PM their time. If a manager in New York asks for something “by EOD”, they mean the end of the New York day, which is early the next morning in India.
| “EOD” set in | Means about | In India (IST) | In London |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 5:00 PM New York | 3:30 AM next day (winter) / 2:30 AM (summer) | 10:00 PM |
| London | 5:00 PM London | 10:30 PM (winter) / 9:30 PM (summer) | 5:00 PM |
| India | 6:00 PM India | 6:00 PM | 12:30 PM (winter) / 1:30 PM (summer) |
| Sydney | 5:00 PM Sydney | 11:30 AM (Sydney summer) / 12:30 PM (Sydney winter) | 6:00 AM / 8:00 AM |
It also works the other way round. A colleague in Sydney who says “EOD Monday” means Monday afternoon in Sydney, which is still Sunday night or Monday morning in Europe and the Americas. If a deadline matters, ask “EOD in which city?”; nobody minds the question.
Why “midnight” is a trap
“Midnight on 5 May” can mean the very start of 5 May or the end of it, and people read it both ways. 12:00 AM and 12:00 PM confuse many readers too. Use one of these instead:
- 23:59 on 5 May (or 11:59 PM), which can only mean the end of the day;
- 00:00 on 6 May if a system needs an exact boundary, but say “the start of 6 May”;
- noon instead of 12:00 PM.
Anywhere on Earth (AoE)
Academic conferences, journals and standards bodies often set deadlines “AoE”. It means: you are on time as long as the date has not yet ended anywhere on Earth. The last places where a date ends are Baker Island and Howland Island, uninhabited US islands in the Pacific at UTC−12, so an AoE deadline is simply 23:59 in UTC−12. The convention started in the IEEE 802.16 working group and is now used by many major computer-science conferences.
The advantage is that nobody anywhere misses the deadline because of their time zone: if it is still the deadline date where you are, you are fine. The catch is that AoE is later than most people expect.
Today’s AoE deadline in your time zone appears here.
| A deadline of 5 May 2027, AoE, closes at | Local time |
|---|---|
| UTC | 11:59, Thursday 6 May |
| India | 5:29 PM, Thursday 6 May |
| Dubai | 3:59 PM, Thursday 6 May |
| London | 12:59 PM, Thursday 6 May |
| New York | 7:59 AM, Thursday 6 May |
| Los Angeles | 4:59 AM, Thursday 6 May |
| Tokyo | 8:59 PM, Thursday 6 May |
| Sydney | 9:59 PM, Thursday 6 May |
Deadlines in UTC
Software releases, exchanges and online services often use UTC. It never changes for daylight saving, which makes it a good neutral choice for international teams. The one thing to remember is how far your own zone is from UTC on that date: India is always 5 hours 30 minutes ahead, while London is on UTC in winter and one hour ahead in summer. The UTC to IST and UTC to EST pages show this for any date.
How to write a deadline nobody can misread
Use this pattern: day, date, time, city, then one or two local equivalents for the main readers.
Submit by Friday 5 March, 17:00 London time (22:30 in India, 12:00 noon in New York).
- Add the weekday. It catches date typos, and people plan in weekdays.
- Use a city rather than an abbreviation. “EST” in July is wrong; “New York time” is always right.
- Check the week you are writing about. In late March and late October, the gap between the UK and the US is an hour smaller than usual for a week or more.
- For global deadlines, AoE or UTC is fairer than any single city.
When you receive a deadline
- Convert it to your own time as soon as it arrives, and put that in your calendar with an alarm a few hours before.
- If the deadline has no city, reply once to confirm: “Just to check: 5 PM New York time, that is 3:30 AM Saturday for me?”
- For AoE, remember that you get the whole of the deadline date in your own zone, and more.
Frequently asked questions
What time is EOD?
Usually 5 PM or 6 PM in the city of the person who set the deadline. If it matters, ask which city they mean.
What does AoE mean in a deadline?
Anywhere on Earth: the deadline is met as long as the date has not ended anywhere on Earth. It is 23:59 in UTC−12, which is 11:59 UTC on the following day.
Is midnight the start or the end of a day?
Technically 00:00 is the start of a day, but people use “midnight on 5 May” for both. Write 23:59 on 5 May instead.
Which time zone should I use for an international deadline?
Name a city and give one or two local equivalents, or use UTC or AoE so that no one is advantaged by their location.
Sources
Checked on 30 September 2026. Times on this page are worked out with the IANA time zone database; live clocks use your browser’s copy of it.