Daylight Saving Dates Table
| Year | US spring forward | US fall back | EU spring forward | EU fall back |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Sun Mar 8 | Sun Nov 1 | Sun Mar 29 | Sun Oct 25 |
| 2027 | Sun Mar 14 | Sun Nov 7 | Sun Mar 28 | Sun Oct 31 |
| 2028 | Sun Mar 12 | Sun Nov 5 | Sun Mar 26 | Sun Oct 29 |
| 2029 | Sun Mar 11 | Sun Nov 4 | Sun Mar 25 | Sun Oct 28 |
Two rules run the world's clocks, and they disagree by weeks: the United States springs forward on the second Sunday of March and falls back on the first Sunday of November, while the European Union springs on the last Sunday of March and falls back on the last Sunday of October - the earlier October date, the later March one. The table below lays both regimes side by side through 2029, because every international call, flight connection and market open sits inside that gap twice a year.
Bottom line: in 2026 the EU falls back on October 25 but the US waits until November 1 - for that week the usual five-hour New York-London difference becomes four, and half the world's meeting invites go stale. Spring splits the other way: in 2026 the US springs forward March 8 and the EU follows on March 29, a three-week gap that swings between one and three weeks from year to year.
The honest part: every date on this page is local - 2:00 AM local time in the US, 1:00 AM UTC in the EU (which lands at different local hours in Paris vs Lisbon) - and Arizona, Hawaii, and most of the US territories never change at all, while the EU's promised abolition has been stuck in Council limbo since 2019. Calendar the dates; do not assume the neighbors.
How to use
- Find your year in the table and read the US and EU columns - spring rows in March, fall rows in October-November.
- Note the gap weeks: transatlantic schedules drift twice a year because the two regimes change on different Sundays.
- Set your own reminders on the countdown page and plan the sleep shift with the DST sleep planner - the table here is the reference, those are the actions.
Frequently asked questions
Why do the US and EU change on different dates?
Different laws, chosen independently: the US fixed its rule in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (second Sunday in March, first Sunday in November), while the EU harmonizes on the last Sundays of March and October, aligned to 1:00 AM UTC so all member states switch simultaneously in local time. Nobody designed the mismatch on purpose - the result is a one-to-three-week window twice a year when New York and London are an hour off their usual difference, which is why international meetings mysteriously drift every March and October.
When does daylight saving end in 2026?
It depends where you stand: the EU changes first, on Sunday October 25, 2026 (clocks back at 1:00 AM UTC - 2:00 AM London, 3:00 AM Berlin); the US follows a week later on Sunday November 1, 2026, at 2:00 AM local. Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the other non-observing territories do nothing at all - and neither does most of the world beyond the EU bloc and a few others; roughly 70% of countries skip the ritual entirely.
Hasn't the EU abolished daylight saving?
It tried: the Parliament voted in 2019 to let member states choose permanent standard or summer time from 2021, but the regulation stalled in the Council - member states could not agree on which time to keep (Greece wants permanent summer, Portugal the opposite), and the COVID years buried the file. So the EU table on this page runs through 2029 like the American one, and any change would come with years of notice; check back if a Council directive ever actually passes.
Why 2 AM - who picked the middle of the night?
The hour was chosen to be maximally ignorable: 2 AM on a Sunday has the fewest trains, deliveries, stock trades and church services to reschedule, and moving from 2 to 3 (or back) keeps the change inside one calendar hour of most people's sleep. The US standardized 2 AM in the Uniform Time Act of 1966; the EU's 1 AM UTC choice does the same job across every member timezone at once. Railroads and stock exchanges still file the most complaints either way.