Where should you not live if your clients are European?
Most time zone advice is written for people choosing where to go. This page is written for the people who already went, took the flight to Asia or the Pacific because it was cheap and warm, and are now getting up at five in the morning to talk to Europe.
Fifty-six cities in our dataset have literally zero overlap with a London working day. Not a small overlap — none. If you work 09:00 to 17:00 and your client works 09:00 to 17:00, there is no hour in the day when you are both at your desk.
The dead zone runs from UTC+8 eastward to UTC+13: all of Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines, western Indonesia’s eastern islands, Japan, South Korea, eastern Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. 56 cities, 13 countries.
Southeast Asia west of that line — Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos — is not much better, at one hour in the northern winter and two in the summer. Anything east of India means restructuring your day, not adjusting it.
| City | Country | UTC | London Jan | London Jul | Berlin Jan | Cost/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Auckland | New Zealand | UTC+13 | none | none | none | $2,900 |
| Nadi | Fiji | UTC+12 | none | none | none | $1,700 |
| Sydney | Australia | UTC+11 | none | none | none | $3,400 |
| Brisbane | Australia | UTC+10 | none | none | none | $2,800 |
| Seoul | South Korea | UTC+9 | none | none | none | $2,200 |
| Tokyo | Japan | UTC+9 | none | none | none | $2,600 |
| Canggu | Indonesia | UTC+8 | none | 1h | 1h | $1,300 |
| Hong Kong (Central) | Hong Kong | UTC+8 | none | 1h | 1h | $3,800 |
| Kuala Lumpur | Malaysia | UTC+8 | none | 1h | 1h | $1,300 |
| Manila | Philippines | UTC+8 | none | 1h | 1h | $1,300 |
| Perth | Australia | UTC+8 | none | 1h | 1h | $2,800 |
| Singapore (CBD) | Singapore | UTC+8 | none | 1h | 1h | $4,200 |
| Taipei | Taiwan | UTC+8 | none | 1h | 1h | $1,900 |
| Honolulu | USA | UTC-10 | none | none | none | $3,600 |
Overlap between a 09:00–17:00 local day and a 09:00–17:00 day in London and Berlin. Zero means the two working days do not touch at any point.
What zero actually means in practice
Take Singapore (CBD). Singapore is UTC+8. A London day of 09:00–17:00 is 17:00–01:00 in Singapore in January. Your client starts work as you finish dinner and finishes as you should be asleep.
You have three options and they are all worse than they sound. You can start your day at 15:00 and work into the night, which destroys your evenings and works fine for about four months. You can split the day, working mornings on your own tasks and coming back at 17:00 for calls, which is the most common arrangement and the one that quietly eats every social plan you make. Or you can go fully asynchronous and accept a full day of latency on every question, which only works if your clients have already agreed to it in writing.
The people who make Asia work with European clients almost always chose the third option deliberately and negotiated it before they moved. The people who struggle assumed they would 'figure out the calls' and discovered that the calls are the job.
The one-hour tier is not the same as zero
Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos sit at UTC+7, which gives 1h with London in January and 2h in the British summer. That single hour is worth a surprising amount, because it means a standing 16:00-your-time call is a 09:00 London call and everyone can live with it.
India and Sri Lanka at UTC+5:30 give 2h in January and 4h in July. Nepal at UTC+5:45 is marginally worse. These are the eastern-most places where a European client relationship is genuinely comfortable rather than merely possible.
Central Asia is the underrated answer. Tashkent at $900, Almaty at $1,100 and Bishkek at $800 give 3h to 2h with London in January, which is a workable half-day, at Southeast Asian prices.
Where the Australians and New Zealanders end up
If you are in Sydney or Auckland and your clients are European, you are in the worst position on this list and you already know it. Australia’s eastern seaboard and New Zealand have zero overlap with London in both January and July, and the daylight-saving calendars run in opposite directions, so the gap widens in the southern summer rather than narrowing.
Perth at UTC+8 is two hours better than Sydney and still shows none in January and 1h in July. It is the only Australian city where a European client is anything other than a night shift.
The honest recommendation
If your income depends on European clients and you want to be in Asia, the answer is the Indian Ocean rim rather than the Pacific rim. Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, the Gulf and Central Asia all keep a real overlap. Thailand and Vietnam are the furthest east you can go before the relationship starts costing you something every single day.
If you are already in Southeast Asia and it is working, it is probably because your clients are Australian, Singaporean or asynchronous. That is a fine business. It is just a different one from the European one, and the mistake is assuming you can run both from the same chair. There is a longer piece on making the split shift survivable at working European hours from Asia.
Common follow-up questions
Which Asian city has the best overlap with Europe?
Of the well-known ones, Dubai at UTC+4 with 4h of London overlap in January. Of the affordable ones, Tbilisi in Georgia at $1,100, also 4h. Both are usually filed under 'Asia' by people who have not looked at a map recently, which is exactly why they are underrated.
Is Bali really that bad for European clients?
Canggu is UTC+8 and shows none of overlap with a London working day in January. Bali works for European clients only in the sense that you can be awake at odd hours; the arithmetic gives you nothing.
Does going one country west actually help?
Substantially, yes. Moving from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok is one time zone and takes London overlap from none to 1h in January. Moving from Bangkok to Colombo takes it to 2h. Each step west is worth roughly an hour of your evening back.
What about Berlin rather than London clients?
Berlin is an hour further east, so everything improves by one hour — but the shape of the problem is identical. A city with zero London overlap has at most one hour with Berlin, which is not a working relationship.