Power Apps Time Zone: Convert SharePoint UTC Times to Eastern and Pacific

Our support team in New York kept booking calls with the Seattle office at the wrong hour. The ask was simple: show every meeting in Eastern and Pacific time, no matter whose laptop opens the app.

That’s a Power Apps time zone problem. SharePoint stores the meeting in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time, the world reference clock), and Power Apps quietly shows it in each user’s local time. We’ll fix it with TimeZoneOffset and DateAdd, so every user sees the same UTC, Eastern and Pacific times.

Here’s what we’re building, with a live UTC clock at the top and each meeting in three zones:

Before You Start

You need edit rights on a SharePoint site and a Power Apps license that includes SharePoint (most Microsoft 365 plans do). For more gallery basics, see how to display SharePoint list items in a Power Apps gallery.

I built this in my Service Desk Demo app on a SharePoint list called Service Requests. It has 620 items and these columns:

Name	Type	Notes
Title	Single line of text	Badge access #1274
Status, Priority	Choice	Not used on this screen
Requester	Single line of text	Adele Vance, Alex Wilber, Diego Siciliani
DueDate	Date and time (Date only)	10/06/2026
RequestedOnText	Single line of text	Not used on this screen
MeetingStart	Date and time (Date & Time)	Stored as 2026-10-06T17:00:00Z

These four meetings fall between 10/05/2026 and 10/07/2026. MeetingStart is shown in UTC:

Title	Requester	MeetingStart (UTC)
Mailbox permissions #1273	Alex Wilber	10/05/2026 04:00 PM
Badge access #1274	Adele Vance	10/06/2026 05:00 PM
New hire setup #1554	Adele Vance	10/06/2026 03:00 PM
Dock not charging #1275	Diego Siciliani	10/07/2026 06:00 PM

SharePoint always keeps Date & Time values in UTC. The list view shows them in the time zone from SharePoint site regional settings, while Power Apps uses the device’s time zone.

Step 1: Create the App and Connect the List

If you’ve never built a canvas app, start here. We’ll create a blank app and add the list as a data source, the place the app reads and writes its data.

1. Open the Service Requests list in SharePoint and check that the MeetingStart column is there:

2. Go to make.powerapps.com. On Home, find Start with design:

3. Select Create in the left menu, then Create from blank for a canvas app:

4. In Start with a blank canvas, pick Tablet. Power Apps Studio opens:

5. Select Add data, type SharePoint in the search box and pick the SharePoint connector:

6. Paste your site URL under Connect to a SharePoint site and select Connect:

7. Check Service Requests under Choose a list and select Connect:

8. Open the Insert menu. You’ll find Text label, Text input, Vertical gallery, Date picker and Button here:

You’ll use two things in every step. The formula bar (marked fx) sits above the canvas, and the property dropdown to its left picks the property you’re editing, such as Items or Text. Press Ctrl+S to save often.

Checkpoint: Service Requests appears under Data in the left pane.

Step 2: Add the Meetings Gallery

1. Rename the screen scrTimeZones and add a title label: October 2026 meetings: stored in UTC, shown in Eastern and Pacific.
2. Insert a Vertical gallery, name it galMeetings, and pick Service Requests as its data source.
3. With the gallery selected, choose Items in the property dropdown and type the formula below in the formula bar.

Filter('Service Requests', DueDate >= Date(2026,10,5), DueDate < Date(2026,10,8))

A day range is safer than an exact date match. Our Power Apps filter gallery by date guide covers more patterns. Here’s the gallery with its Items formula:

Checkpoint: the gallery lists Mailbox permissions #1273, Badge access #1274, Dock not charging #1275 and New hire setup #1554.

Step 3: Show the Stored UTC Time

A plain ThisItem.MeetingStart label shows the viewer’s local time. To show the real UTC value, add the TimeZoneOffset minutes back:

1. Select the first row of the gallery and insert a Text label. Name it lblUtc.
2. Choose Text in the property dropdown and type the formula below.

"UTC: " & Text(
    DateAdd(ThisItem.MeetingStart, TimeZoneOffset(ThisItem.MeetingStart), TimeUnit.Minutes),
    "mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm AM/PM")

TimeZoneOffset returns the minutes between the user’s local time and UTC. It’s positive in every US zone, so adding it converts local to UTC, and subtracting it does the reverse. Our Power Apps DateAdd function guide explains the units.

Pass the meeting date to TimeZoneOffset; without it, you get today’s offset. Here’s the label with the formula bar expanded:

Checkpoint: Badge access #1274 shows UTC: 10/06/2026 05:00 PM on any device.

Step 4: Convert UTC to Eastern and Pacific Time

Now we shift the UTC value by a fixed US offset: 240 minutes for Eastern Daylight Time, 420 for Pacific Daylight Time.

1. Add a label named lblEastern next to lblUtc.
2. Set its Text to the Eastern formula below.
3. Copy the label, rename it lblPacific, and change 240 to 420.

"Eastern EDT (UTC-4): " & Text(
    DateAdd(ThisItem.MeetingStart, TimeZoneOffset(ThisItem.MeetingStart) - 240, TimeUnit.Minutes),
    "hh:mm AM/PM")

Here’s the Eastern label selected, with the formula bar expanded:

These are the results the app shows for all four meetings:

Meeting	UTC	Eastern (EDT)	Pacific (PDT)
Mailbox permissions #1273	10/05/2026 04:00 PM	12:00 PM	09:00 AM
Badge access #1274	10/06/2026 05:00 PM	01:00 PM	10:00 AM
New hire setup #1554	10/06/2026 03:00 PM	11:00 AM	08:00 AM
Dock not charging #1275	10/07/2026 06:00 PM	02:00 PM	11:00 AM

Checkpoint: Badge access #1274 reads Eastern EDT (UTC-4): 01:00 PM and Pacific PDT (UTC-7): 10:00 AM.

Handle daylight saving time

A fixed offset is only right for part of the year. US daylight saving time ends on 11/01/2026, so switch the numbers on that date:

Zone	Until 11/01/2026	After 11/01/2026
Eastern	EDT, subtract 240	EST, subtract 300
Pacific	PDT, subtract 420	PST, subtract 480

Step 5: Add a Live UTC Clock

A UTC clock helps people check the math. Add a label above the gallery and set its Text to the formula below. Our Now, Today and IsToday functions post covers the clock functions:

"Now (UTC): " & Text(Now(), DateTimeFormat.UTC)

DateTimeFormat.UTC converts the value to UTC and writes it in ISO 8601 format, ending in Z. The other values, such as ShortDate, ShortDateTime, LongDateTime and ShortTime24, stay in the user’s local time and follow the user’s language and region.

Checkpoint: the label reads Now (UTC): 2026-10-14T12:19:43.159Z in the first screenshot. Yours shows your current time.

Step 6: Save a Meeting Time With Patch

When Power Apps writes a local date and time to a SharePoint Date & Time column, it converts the value to UTC for you. So Patch the local value with the Power Apps Patch function and don’t add an offset yourself:

Patch('Service Requests', galMeetings.Selected,
    {MeetingStart: DateAdd(dpMeetingDate.SelectedDate, Value(txtHour.Text), TimeUnit.Hours)})

Put this in a button’s OnSelect property. Adding TimeZoneOffset here would convert the time twice, so keep the offset math in display labels only.

Checkpoint: open the Service Requests list in SharePoint and confirm the MeetingStart value matches the local time you picked.

Step 7: Handle Date-Only Columns and the Date Picker

A date-only value is midnight. Shift it by four hours and it lands on the previous evening, which is the classic off-by-one-day error. So never run TimeZoneOffset math on DueDate. See our date time picker in Power Apps guide for picker basics.

1. Insert two Date picker controls, dpLocal and dpUtc.
2. Select dpUtc and set Date time zone to UTC in the Properties pane. dpLocal keeps the default, Local.
3. Set the DefaultDate of dpUtc to DateTimeValue("2026-10-06T12:00:00Z").

Both pickers show 10/6/2026 here, and the Properties pane shows the Date time zone setting:

Leave pickers on Local for SharePoint date-only columns. In my app, a Local picker set to Date(2026,10,8) returned true when compared with DateValue(“10/08/2026”). Switch to UTC only when the whole app reads and writes UTC dates.

Checkpoint: dpUtc shows Date time zone: UTC, and both pickers read 10/6/2026.

Test the App

Select Preview (the play button at the top right) or press F5. In the editor, you can also hold Alt and select a button to try it.

Read the rows: Alex Wilber’s meeting shows 12:00 PM Eastern and 09:00 AM Pacific, and Adele Vance’s Badge access #1274 shows 01:00 PM and 10:00 AM. Because both start from UTC, every device shows the same values.

Troubleshooting

• Times are off by 4 or 5 hours. You converted twice. Use the automatic local display or the TimeZoneOffset formula, not both.
• Dates show one day early. A date-only value went through an offset. Remove the DateAdd on date columns.
• Times are an hour off after 11/01/2026. The daylight offsets are still in use. Switch to 300 and 480, or keep the offsets in a settings list.
• The list and the app disagree. The site’s regional time zone differs from the device. That’s display only; the stored UTC value is the same.

Where to Take It Next

• Send the converted time in a reminder email with convert time zone in Power Automate.
• Show how long until each meeting with the Power Apps DateDiff function.

If you’re working on more date screens, these are worth a look:

• How to Calculate Days Between Dates in Power Apps?
• Power Apps Calendar Function With Examples
• How to Change Date Format in Power Apps Data Table?
• How to Get the Dates for the Current Week in Power Apps

Frequently Asked Questions