Microsoft Bookings showing wrong time slots or time zone

How Bookings handles time zones#

From the Bookings FAQ and the booking page article, as of September 2026:

• Every setting on a shared booking page, including business hours and staff hours, is in the business time zone.
• There's no per-staff time zone. "Staff time zone, and business hours are in the business time zone."
• Visitors see slots in their own local time zone unless Always show time slots in business time zone is ticked. The example on Microsoft Learn: a 1:00 pm PST slot shows as 3:00 pm to someone in CST.

The business time zone is set on Booking page → Region and time zone settings, next to the page language.

What we saw when testing (September 2026)#

We captured the public Microsoft booking page from browsers set to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Kolkata and Kathmandu (a +5:45 zone). It behaved as documented, with two details worth knowing:

• The visitor's device decides what they see. Unless the page is set to show the business time zone, slots are shown in the time zone of the visitor's browser, and the availability request is made in that zone. Testing the page on your own laptop shows your zone, not necessarily your customer's.
• The booking carries the customer's time zone. The booking request includes the time zone the customer booked from, alongside the appointment time. A booking made from a laptop set to the wrong zone is still stored at the right moment in time; it's only the customer's view that was shifted.

Fix it step by step#

1. Check the booking page's time zone#

Open Bookings → Shared booking pages → your page → Booking page → Region and time zone settings. Make sure the time zone is the one your business hours are meant in, then Save and publish.

In a 2025 thread about appointments showing an hour late in Apple and iCloud calendars, one admin found the page's time zone had changed by itself on two booking pages. Changing it back fixed the offset. Microsoft doesn't document why that happens, but it's quick to check.

2. Match your Outlook time zone#

The accepted fix on the 94-vote thread: in Outlook on the web, open Settings and check the time zone under your language and time settings. It must match the Bookings time zone. Then reload the booking page. Do this for the account that manages Bookings and for staff who report shifted times.

3. Decide what visitors should see#

• Leave "Always show time slots in business time zone" unticked if customers are in many time zones and meetings are online. Each visitor sees slots converted to their own clock.
• Tick it for in-person services where everyone must arrive at your local time. A visitor whose laptop is set to another zone then won't see converted times.

4. Check service custom hours#

Services with Custom hours or a date range under Availability options override general hours, and those are also in business time. A 2025 thread about bookings "outside business hours" came down to time zones and service custom hours.

Staff in other time zones#

Because there's no staff time zone, convert each person's working hours into the business time zone and enter them as custom hours (Staff → the person → untick Use business hours).

A 2023 example: a page set to UTC+1 with staff in Japan, California and Slovenia. For the Tokyo staff member to work 9:00–17:00 local time, the admin entered 2:00–10:00 in UTC+1, and slots came out right. Two things to watch:

• Daylight saving time. If only one location changes clocks, the converted hours drift by an hour twice a year. Re-check them at each change.
• Days that cross midnight. A Californian 9:00–17:00 day is partly the next calendar day in UTC+1. Enter hours on both days.

If the zones are too far apart to manage this way, a separate booking page per region, each with its own business time zone, is simpler. The shared booking page setup guide covers setting the zone when you create a page.

Still wrong?#

If slots are at the right times but on the wrong days, or missing, see no available times. If start times fall at odd minutes rather than shifting by whole hours, see odd start times.

BookingsXP is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft.