The clocks fall back twice this autumn on the two sides of the Atlantic, one week apart. The United Kingdom and every European Union country end summer time on Sunday, October 25, 2026. The United States and most of Canada end daylight saving time on Sunday, November 1, 2026. Between those two Sundays, the time difference between any European city and any North American city that both change their clocks is one hour shorter than during the rest of the year.
The dates are only part of the picture. The two systems also change at different kinds of moments: Europe at a single instant, North America zone by zone. And the one-week gap in autumn is not a coincidence of 2026. It is built into the calendar rules and repeats every year.
The 2026 fall-back schedule, side by side
Europe’s rule comes from EU Directive 2000/84/EC: summer time ends on the last Sunday of October at 01:00 UTC. The UK left the EU but kept the same schedule under the Summer Time Act 1972, as amended in 2002. The US rule comes from the Uniform Time Act of 1966 as amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005: daylight saving time ends on the first Sunday of November at 2:00 a.m. local time.
| Region | Date | Local clock change | Moment in UTC |
|---|---|---|---|
| UK and Ireland | Sun, Oct 25 | 02:00 BST → 01:00 GMT | 01:00 UTC, Oct 25 |
| Central Europe (France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, Norway, Switzerland) | Sun, Oct 25 | 03:00 → 02:00 | 01:00 UTC, Oct 25 |
| Eastern Europe (Finland, Greece, Romania, Ukraine, Baltic states) | Sun, Oct 25 | 04:00 → 03:00 | 01:00 UTC, Oct 25 |
| Israel | Sun, Oct 25 | 02:00 → 01:00 | 23:00 UTC, Oct 24 |
| Egypt | Night of Thu, Oct 29 | 00:00 (Oct 30) → 23:00 (Oct 29) | 21:00 UTC, Oct 29 |
| US Eastern / Canada Eastern | Sun, Nov 1 | 2:00 a.m. EDT → 1:00 a.m. EST | 06:00 UTC, Nov 1 |
| US Central | Sun, Nov 1 | 2:00 a.m. CDT → 1:00 a.m. CST | 07:00 UTC, Nov 1 |
| US Mountain | Sun, Nov 1 | 2:00 a.m. MDT → 1:00 a.m. MST | 08:00 UTC, Nov 1 |
| US Pacific | Sun, Nov 1 | 2:00 a.m. PDT → 1:00 a.m. PST | 09:00 UTC, Nov 1 |
| Alaska | Sun, Nov 1 | 2:00 a.m. AKDT → 1:00 a.m. AKST | 10:00 UTC, Nov 1 |
Israel changes on the same Sunday as Europe but under its own 2013 law and at 02:00 local time, which is two hours earlier than the EU’s single instant. Egypt, which brought daylight saving time back in 2023, ends it at the close of the last Thursday in October. In 2026 that is October 29.
The spring dates that started this cycle were March 8 in the US and March 29 in Europe. That means US daylight saving time lasts 238 days in 2026 (exactly 34 weeks), and European summer time lasts 210 days (exactly 30 weeks). North America spends four more weeks per year on its summer clock than Europe does.
One instant in Europe, a rolling wave across North America
Because the EU rule is fixed in UTC, the whole continent shifts at the same physical moment. London goes from 02:00 to 01:00, Madrid from 03:00 to 02:00, and Helsinki from 04:00 to 03:00, all at once. The time differences between European cities never change, not even for a second.
The North American rule is fixed in local time, so the change sweeps west over several hours. Newfoundland goes first at 04:30 UTC, then Atlantic Canada at 05:00 UTC. Eastern follows at 06:00 UTC, and Alaska is last at 10:00 UTC. This creates an odd side effect. Between 06:00 and 07:00 UTC on November 1, New York has already fallen back to 1:00 a.m. EST (UTC−5), while Chicago is still on 1:00 a.m. CDT, which is also UTC−5. For that hour, clocks in New York and Chicago show exactly the same time. The same thing happens at each zone boundary further west.
Every zone that falls back also lives through one clock hour twice. In the US, 1:00 to 1:59 a.m. repeats. In the UK it is 01:00 to 01:59; in Central Europe, 02:00 to 02:59. A timestamp like “1:30 a.m. on November 1” in New York refers to two different moments exactly one hour apart. That is why the repeated hour causes trouble for night shifts, billing systems, and scheduled software jobs.
The week New York and London are four hours apart
From October 25 to November 1, 2026, Europe is back on standard time while the US is still on daylight time. The usual transatlantic gaps shrink by one hour:
| City pair | Usual difference | Oct 25 to Nov 1, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| New York to London | 5 hours | 4 hours |
| New York to Paris, Berlin, Madrid | 6 hours | 5 hours |
| Chicago to London | 6 hours | 5 hours |
| Los Angeles to London | 8 hours | 7 hours |
| New York to Tel Aviv | 7 hours | 6 hours |
Markets feel this immediately. The New York Stock Exchange still opens at 9:30 a.m. ET, but during this week that is 13:30 in London instead of 14:30. The overlap with the London Stock Exchange, which closes at 16:30 London time, grows from two hours to three. Recurring calendar invites follow the organizer’s time zone. A weekly call set for 10:00 a.m. in New York normally lands at 15:00 in London. For this one week it lands at 14:00. The trading side is covered in more detail in DST and market hours.
This gap is not a feature of 2026. It comes straight from the calendar rules. The last Sunday of October always falls between October 25 and 31, and the first Sunday of November always falls exactly seven days later. The spring gap works differently, because “second Sunday of March” and “last Sunday of March” can be either two or three weeks apart.
Autumn: EU = Oct 25 + k, US = Nov 1 + k → gap = 7 days, every year
Spring: US = Mar 8 + k
EU = Mar 29 + k (if k ≤ 2) or Mar 22 + k (if k ≥ 3)
→ gap = 21 days when k = 0, 1, 2; 14 days when k = 3 to 6
2026: US Mar 8 (k = 0), EU Mar 29 → 3 weeks
2027: US Mar 14 (k = 6), EU Mar 28 → 2 weeks
The autumn mismatch between Europe and the US is always exactly seven days, because the last Sunday of October and the first Sunday of November are always one week apart. Only the spring mismatch changes length from year to year. worldtimedata
From 1996, when the EU settled on the last Sunday of October, through 2006, both sides ended summer time on the same Sunday, because the US also ended DST on the last Sunday of October. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 moved the American end date into November and the start date into March, beginning in 2007. That added four to five weeks of daylight time per year and created the permanent one-week autumn mismatch.
Places that will not touch their clocks at all
Most of the world does not use daylight saving time. Several places that border DST regions also stay on one time all year:
| Place | Year-round offset | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Arizona (except the Navajo Nation) | UTC−7 | No DST since 1968 |
| Hawaii | UTC−10 | No DST |
| Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa | Varies by territory | No DST |
| Saskatchewan (most of the province) | UTC−6 | No DST |
| Yukon | UTC−7 | Permanent time since 2020 |
| Mexico (most of the country) | Varies by zone | DST abolished in 2022; Baja California and some border municipalities still follow US dates |
| Iceland | UTC+0 | Year-round since 1968 |
| Japan | UTC+9 | No DST since 1951 |
| China | UTC+8 | No DST since 1991 |
| India | UTC+5:30 | No DST |
| Queensland, Western Australia, Northern Territory | UTC+10, +8, +9:30 | No DST |
| Turkey | UTC+3 | Permanent time since 2016 |
| Iran | UTC+3:30 | DST abolished in 2022 |
Not changing the clock does not mean the time difference stays fixed. Anyone who works with a DST country gets the shift indirectly. India is 4 hours 30 minutes ahead of London until October 25 and 5 hours 30 minutes ahead after it. India is 9 hours 30 minutes ahead of New York until November 1, then 10 hours 30 minutes. Mexico City is one hour behind Houston until November 1, then on the same time. Arizona matches Los Angeles all summer and matches Denver once the rest of the Mountain zone falls back. The reasons behind that choice are in why Arizona opts out.
The Southern Hemisphere is moving the other way
While the north falls back, much of the south has just sprung forward for its own summer. New Zealand moved to daylight time on September 27, mainland Chile on September 6. New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and the ACT move forward on Sunday, October 4, 2026, and stay on daylight time until April 4, 2027.
When one hemisphere goes forward and the other goes back, the gap between them widens by two hours within a few weeks. Sydney and New York pass through three different differences in one month:
- Until October 4: Sydney on AEST (UTC+10), New York on EDT (UTC−4), 14 hours apart.
- October 4 to November 1: Sydney on AEDT (UTC+11), New York still on EDT, 15 hours apart.
- From November 1: Sydney on AEDT, New York on EST (UTC−5), 16 hours apart.
London and Sydney go through the same jump, from 9 hours to 10 on October 4 and to 11 on October 25.
What the extra hour actually does to the evening
Falling back does not add daylight. It moves an hour of light from the evening to the morning. After the October change, sunset in London comes before 5 p.m. US cities lose their evening hour a week later. For the UK, the October change means returning from BST to Greenwich Mean Time, the standard time London actually keeps for only about five months of the year. The background is in London and GMT.
Phones, laptops, and most smartwatches update by themselves, as long as their time zone is set to a location (such as America/New_York) rather than a fixed offset like UTC−4. A device set to a fixed offset will not fall back, and neither will many car clocks, ovens, and older wall clocks.
Will 2026 be the last fall-back?
In the US, a bill to end the changes has passed the House for the first time. On July 14, 2026, the House approved the Sunshine Protection Act (H.R. 139) by 308 votes to 117, with public support from President Trump. The bill would make daylight saving time permanent, though states could choose permanent standard time instead. In March 2022 the Senate passed an earlier version by unanimous consent, but the House never voted on it. This time the order is reversed: the Senate companion bill has been with the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee since January 2025. USA Today reported that the Senate is in recess until after the November 3 midterm elections. Under current law, the November 1 change goes ahead.
The choice between the two permanent options is where the debate stalls. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has argued since 2020 for permanent standard time rather than permanent daylight time. Its reasoning is that standard time keeps the clock closer to the sun, while permanent DST would mean months of later winter sunrises.
The EU stalled at the same point earlier. The European Commission proposed ending seasonal changes in September 2018, after a public consultation drew about 4.6 million replies, 84% of them in favor of stopping. The consultation was self-selected, not a representative poll. The European Parliament voted on March 26, 2019 to end the switch by 2021. The Council of the EU never agreed on a position, mainly because member states could not agree whether to keep summer or winter time and how to avoid a patchwork of neighboring zones. Spain reopened the issue at an EU energy ministers’ meeting in October 2025, with Finland and Poland also asking to end the switch. The Commission has since started a new impact study, but nothing has been adopted, and the October 25 change will happen as usual. The UK has no current plans to stop changing its clocks.
If none of this changes, the 2027 schedule is already set. Europe and the UK go forward on March 28 and back on October 31. The US and Canada go forward on March 14 and back on November 7. That means a two-week mismatch in spring 2027 and, as the calendar rules require, exactly one week in autumn.
