One moment, in the event’s time zone
Every countdown has a time zone, chosen in the builder. The countdown runs to that moment, so a launch at 9 a.m. in New York reaches zero at the same instant for someone in London or Tokyo, and everyone who opens the link sees the same time left.
The ready-made holiday countdowns work the other way on purpose: they count to midnight in each visitor’s time zone, because Christmas morning arrives at a different moment in every city.
Daylight saving: counting by the clock
Suppose it’s 8:06 p.m. on October 6 in Los Angeles and you count down to midnight on New Year’s Day. Look at a clock and the answer is 86 days, 3 hours and 54 minutes. A stopwatch would say 86 days, 4 hours and 54 minutes, because the clocks fall back an hour on November 1 and that night has an extra hour in it.
Both are “right”, but only one matches what people expect: at 8 p.m., midnight is about four hours away, not five. So count.live counts by the clock in the countdown’s time zone. The extra hour is handled when it actually happens: on the night the clocks fall back, the time left goes up by an hour at 2 a.m., just as the clocks go from 2:00 back to 1:00. When clocks spring forward, it drops by an hour at the same moment the clocks skip ahead. From noon on March 13 to midnight on March 15 (Los Angeles, 2027) reads 1 day 12 hours, as a clock would tell you, even though one of those hours never happens.
How each unit is rounded
A countdown can show any mix of years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds. The smallest unit shown decides how the number is rounded:
| Smallest unit | Rule | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Days or weeks | Counts midnights, like a calendar | Tuesday 10 a.m. to Thursday 3 p.m. is 2 days. Later today is 0 days: it’s today. |
| Hours | Rounds to the nearest hour, never 0 before the end | 8:59 p.m. to midnight is 3 hours; 11:45 p.m. to midnight is 1 hour. |
| Minutes or seconds | Rounds up, so it reaches 0 exactly at the end | 11:45 p.m. to midnight is 15 minutes. |
| Months or years | Whole calendar months, then what’s left | January 15 to March 15 is 2 months, whether February has 28 or 29 days. |
That’s why the same moment can read differently depending on the units. From 8:06 p.m. on October 6 to Christmas morning in Los Angeles:
- Days only: 80 days (80 midnights to go)
- Days and hours: 79 days 4 hours (3 hours 54 minutes rounds to 4 hours)
- Weeks and days: 11 weeks 3 days
- Months and days: 2 months 19 days
- Hours only: 1,900 hours
Repeating countdowns and short months
A repeating countdown always works out its next date from the original one, so it never drifts:
- Monthly on the 31st: in a shorter month it falls on the last day (February 28), then returns to the 31st in March.
- Yearly on February 29: it falls on February 28 in common years and comes back to the 29th in leap years.
- Daily at 9 a.m.: it stays at 9 a.m. after the clocks change, rather than moving to 8 or 10.
The same everywhere
These rules are shared by the website, embeds, the iPhone and Android apps, their home-screen widgets and the count.live app for Canva, so a countdown reads the same wherever it’s shown. Each rule above is covered by automated tests that run on every change, in time zones from Los Angeles to Sydney, including unusual ones like Nepal’s UTC+5:45 and Lord Howe Island’s half-hour daylight saving, plus leap years.
For every link option, see the documentation.
Frequently asked questions
Why did my countdown change by an hour overnight?
The clocks changed for daylight saving time in the countdown’s time zone. count.live counts by the clock, so the time left jumps by an hour at the same moment the clocks do.
Why does a countdown with only days show one more day than with days and hours?
Days alone count midnights, like a calendar, so a countdown to Christmas morning shows 80 days when 79 days and some hours are left. Add hours and you see the exact split.
Does count.live count working days?
No. It counts calendar time, so weekends and holidays are included.