When Does Daylight Saving Time End in 2026?

Daylight Saving Time changes happen on different dates in different parts of the world, and 2026 is no exception. Here is exactly when clocks move in the US, Europe, the UK, and Australia — plus the handful of countries that ignore DST entirely.

When DST ends in the United States (2026)

In the United States, Daylight Saving Time ends on the first Sunday of November. In 2026, that is Sunday, November 1, 2026. At 2:00 AM local time, clocks go back one hour to 1:00 AM. Daylight time (EDT, UTC−4 on the East Coast) ends and standard time (EST, UTC−5) resumes.

This shift applies simultaneously across every time zone — each zone ends DST at 2:00 AM in its own local wall-clock time, not simultaneously in UTC. That means the Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific zones each roll back at their own 2:00 AM moment over the course of the same night.

When DST ends in Europe (2026)

The European Union and the UK end summer time on the last Sunday of October. In 2026, that is Sunday, October 25, 2026. Clocks go back one hour at 1:00 AM UTC (3:00 AM local in Central Europe; 2:00 AM BST in the UK). The UK switches from British Summer Time (BST, UTC+1) to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT, UTC+0), and Central Europe switches from Central European Summer Time (CEST, UTC+2) to Central European Time (CET, UTC+1).

Unlike the US, the EU ends DST about a week earlier. This creates a roughly one-week window each autumn where the usual offset between New York and London is only four hours instead of the normal five.

When DST starts in 2026 (spring forward)

In the United States, DST begins on the second Sunday of March — Sunday, March 8, 2026. Clocks jump forward from 2:00 AM to 3:00 AM. In the European Union and UK, DST begins on the last Sunday of March — Sunday, March 29, 2026. This means the US springs forward about three weeks before Europe, which briefly compresses the time difference between New York and London to four hours instead of five.

Note that Australia sits in the Southern Hemisphere, so its seasons — and its DST calendar — are reversed. Australian clocks "fall back" in April (autumn there) and "spring forward" in October (spring there). Only the southeastern states (New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and the Australian Capital Territory) observe DST; Queensland, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory do not.

Countries that don't observe DST

A large portion of the world never changes its clocks. India, China, Japan, and most of Africa stay on a single offset year-round. Parts of South America — including Argentina, Brazil (which abolished DST in 2019), and most of Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela — also skip it. Iceland, despite its northern latitude, stays on GMT all year. Within the US, most of Arizona (excluding the Navajo Nation) and all of Hawaii remain on standard time through the summer.

Equatorial regions have the strongest geographic reason to skip DST: near the equator, daylight hours are roughly constant year-round, so there is nothing to gain by shifting clocks. Countries that do skip it tend to cite health studies, energy research, and general public preference.

Why do US and EU clocks change on different dates?

Until 2007, the US and the EU ended DST on roughly the same weekend. That changed with the US Energy Policy Act of 2005, which extended DST by about four weeks — moving the start earlier (from the first Sunday in April to the second Sunday in March) and the end later (from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November). The EU kept its original last-Sunday-of-March and last-Sunday-of-October schedule.

The result is two unsynchronized windows each year — roughly three weeks in spring and one week in autumn — where the usual offset between the US and Europe is temporarily off by an hour. If you schedule recurring international meetings, these are the weeks when a calendar reminder set in one zone will surprise you in the other.