WAT to JST: WAT is 8 hours behind JST
West Africa Time is 8 hours behind Japan Standard Time, on every day of the year. It is 9:15 pm WAT in West Africa and 5:15 am JST in Japan, which is already the next day there.
Convert a specific time from WAT to JST
Pick any time and date to convert it both ways. The conversion runs in your browser against the real zone rules, so a date inside a daylight saving period gets that period's offset rather than today's.
What is the time difference between WAT and JST?
Japan Standard Time is 8 hours ahead of West Africa Time. To go from WAT to JST you add 8 hours. That gap holds on all 365 days of 2026: neither zone moves its clocks.
WAT to JST conversion table
Every hour of Saturday, September 26, 2026 in West Africa, with the matching reading in Japan. 8 of the 24 hours land on a different calendar date in Japan, which is the part people get wrong when they schedule across this pair.
| WAT | WAT 24h | JST | JST 24h | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12:00 am | 00:00 | 8:00 am | 08:00 | same day |
| 1:00 am | 01:00 | 9:00 am | 09:00 | same day |
| 2:00 am | 02:00 | 10:00 am | 10:00 | same day |
| 3:00 am | 03:00 | 11:00 am | 11:00 | same day |
| 4:00 am | 04:00 | 12:00 pm | 12:00 | same day |
| 5:00 am | 05:00 | 1:00 pm | 13:00 | same day |
| 6:00 am | 06:00 | 2:00 pm | 14:00 | same day |
| 7:00 am | 07:00 | 3:00 pm | 15:00 | same day |
| 8:00 am | 08:00 | 4:00 pm | 16:00 | same day |
| 9:00 am | 09:00 | 5:00 pm | 17:00 | same day |
| 10:00 am | 10:00 | 6:00 pm | 18:00 | same day |
| 11:00 am | 11:00 | 7:00 pm | 19:00 | same day |
| 12:00 pm | 12:00 | 8:00 pm | 20:00 | same day |
| 1:00 pm | 13:00 | 9:00 pm | 21:00 | same day |
| 2:00 pm | 14:00 | 10:00 pm | 22:00 | same day |
| 3:00 pm | 15:00 | 11:00 pm | 23:00 | same day |
| 4:00 pm | 16:00 | 12:00 am | 00:00 | the next day |
| 5:00 pm | 17:00 | 1:00 am | 01:00 | the next day |
| 6:00 pm | 18:00 | 2:00 am | 02:00 | the next day |
| 7:00 pm | 19:00 | 3:00 am | 03:00 | the next day |
| 8:00 pm | 20:00 | 4:00 am | 04:00 | the next day |
| 9:00 pm | 21:00 | 5:00 am | 05:00 | the next day |
| 10:00 pm | 22:00 | 6:00 am | 06:00 | the next day |
| 11:00 pm | 23:00 | 7:00 am | 07:00 | the next day |
What are the best hours to schedule a call between WAT and JST?
No hour of the standard 9:00 am to 5:00 pm working day falls inside working hours on both sides. West Africa and Japan are 8 hours apart, which is too far for an overlap, so somebody has to take a call outside their own working day. The least painful options are below, ranked by how close both sides sit to the middle of the afternoon.
| WAT | JST | Working hours | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7:00 am | 3:00 pm | JST only | early morning in West Africa, afternoon in Japan |
| 8:00 am | 4:00 pm | JST only | mid morning in West Africa, afternoon in Japan |
| 9:00 am | 5:00 pm | WAT only | mid morning in West Africa, evening in Japan |
Does daylight saving change WAT to JST?
West Africa Time does not move its clocks at all, so its UTC+1 offset holds every day of the year.
Japan Standard Time does not move its clocks at all, so its UTC+9 offset holds every day of the year.
Is WAT ahead of or behind JST?
WAT is behind JST by 8 hours: when it is 12:00 pm in West Africa, it is 8:00 pm in Japan. Neither West Africa Time nor Japan Standard Time observes daylight saving, so the abbreviations never change and the gap between them is fixed.
West Africa Time covers Lagos, Kinshasa, Luanda and Douala, the most populous zone in Africa. Japan Standard Time covers Tokyo, Osaka and the whole of Japan. The identifiers behind them are Africa/Lagos and Asia/Tokyo, which is what any calendar or scheduling system should be storing rather than a fixed number of hours.
Questions
- What is WAT in JST?
- WAT is 8 hours behind JST. 9:00 am WAT is 5:00 pm JST.
- How many hours ahead is JST of WAT?
- JST is 8 hours ahead of WAT.
- What time is it in Japan right now?
- 5:15 am JST on Sunday, September 27, 2026.
- When can West Africa and Japan meet during working hours?
- There is no shared working hour. The closest fit is 7:00 am WAT, which is 3:00 pm JST.
- Does this account for daylight saving?
- Yes. Every reading is computed from the IANA database for the actual date, so WAT and JST are the abbreviations genuinely in force today rather than a fixed assumption.
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