When do the clocks go back 2026? UK and EU Oct. 25, US Nov. 1

Key takeaways

• Clocks in the UK and the European Union go back one hour at 01:00 UTC on Sunday, October 25, 2026, ending summer time.
• Most of the United States and Canada fall back a week later, at 2 a.m. local time on Sunday, November 1, 2026.
• Hawaii, most of Arizona, several US territories and, for the first time, most of British Columbia will not change their clocks.
• Sleep-medicine bodies led by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) back permanent standard time, the setting clocks return to this weekend.
• The EU's 2018 plan to scrap clock changes is still stuck in the Council, and a US bill for permanent daylight saving time has passed the House but not the Senate.

When do the clocks go back 2026? In Britain and the European Union, on Sunday, October 25, at 01:00 UTC; in Britain that is 2 a.m., when Greenwich Mean Time returns, according to GOV.UK. Most of the US and Canada follow on November 1.

Every EU country changes at the same instant as the UK, because EU law sets the switch in universal time rather than local time. In America the change happens hour by hour across the time zones. Below is the full timetable, followed by what the science says about how the shift affects sleep and the body clock, and why governments on both sides of the Atlantic have so far failed to end the twice-yearly switch.

When do the clocks go back in 2026? Dates by region

The EU's Directive 2000/84/EC, adopted on January 19, 2001, says summer time ends in every member state "at 1.00 a.m., Greenwich Mean Time, on the last Sunday in October." In 2026 that Sunday is October 25. The UK follows the same rule under its own law.

In the US, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 moved the end of daylight saving time (DST) to the first Sunday in November from 2007, and the change happens at 2 a.m. local time, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NIST lists the 2026 US DST period as March 8 to November 1.

Because the European change is fixed in UTC, the gap between London and New York shrinks to four hours for one week, from October 25 until the US changes on November 1. Travellers, remote teams and anyone with transatlantic calls should check meeting times during that week.

Who does not change the clocks?

NIST lists Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and Arizona as places that do not observe DST. The Navajo Nation, which lies partly in Arizona, is the exception and does change.

Canada brings one big new exception this year. The Government of British Columbia says the province's March 8, 2026, spring change was its last, and clocks across most of B.C. will not be turned back on November 1. The province now stays on UTC-7 all year. The town of Golden makes one final change on November 1 and then stays on mountain standard time.

Worldwide, the switch is a minority habit. Pew Research Center found that only about a third of countries observe DST, most of them in Europe. Among European countries, Pew lists Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Iceland, Russia and Turkey as places that do not change their clocks, and it notes that Mexico voted in 2022 to drop summer time in most of the country.

What the time change does to your body clock

The body runs on a circadian rhythm, a roughly 24-hour cycle of physical, mental and behavioural changes. According to the US National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the master clock sits in a cluster of brain cells called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. Light and darkness are the strongest signals it uses. In the evening, the clock prompts the brain to release more melatonin, which makes us sleepy.

Changing the clock does not change the sun. It moves social time, meaning work, school and alarms, by one hour against the light-dark cycle the brain is tracking. After the autumn change, mornings are lighter and evenings get dark an hour earlier by the clock.

Why falling back is the gentler change

A landmark 1999 study in Science by Charles Czeisler and colleagues measured the human circadian pacemaker's intrinsic period at about 24.18 hours on average, slightly longer than a day. A clock that tends to drift later finds a later schedule easier to absorb. Falling back gives the body that later schedule, while the spring change forces the clock earlier and removes an hour of sleep.

Road-safety data fit this pattern. A study in Current Biology led by Josef Fritz and Céline Vetter at the University of Colorado Boulder analysed 732,835 fatal crashes in the US from 1996 to 2017. It found fatal crashes rose about 6% in the working week after the spring change, about 28 extra deaths a year, according to the university's release. After the autumn change there was no net effect: fewer crashes in the now-lighter mornings were offset by more in the darker evenings.

How to adjust to the extra hour

• Get morning light. Light is the clock's strongest cue, so daylight soon after waking helps anchor the new schedule.
• Keep your wake-up time steady. Using the extra hour for one long lie-in can leave you wide awake at bedtime on Sunday night.
• Plan for darker evening commutes. The crash data suggest that evening risk rises after the autumn change, so take extra care on the road at dusk.
• Expect children and pets to wake "early". Their body clocks do not read the new time, so moving meals and bedtimes later in small steps over a few days can ease the change.

Why sleep scientists want permanent standard time

The AASM published an updated position statement on October 31, 2023, in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, saying that "the United States should eliminate seasonal time changes in favor of permanent standard time." It argues that standard time best matches human circadian biology, and that seasonal changes put the body clock out of step with the natural day-night cycle, with risks to physical health, mental well-being and public safety. Twenty organisations endorsed the statement, including the Sleep Research Society, the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms, the National Sleep Foundation, the National Safety Council and the World Sleep Society.

The key argument is about morning light. Under permanent DST, winter sunrises come an hour later by the clock, so many people would wake, commute and start school in darkness. That would deprive the brain of the morning light that keeps the circadian rhythm aligned.

A 2025 modelling study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Lara Weed and Jamie Zeitzer of Stanford Medicine tried to put numbers on the trade-off. Compared with today's twice-yearly switch, it estimated that permanent standard time would mean about 300,000 fewer strokes a year and 2.6 million fewer people with obesity in the US, according to a summary of the study. Permanent DST delivered roughly two-thirds of those gains. "We found that staying in standard time or staying in daylight saving time is definitely better than switching twice a year," Zeitzer said. The authors note that this is a model built on light exposure and county health data, not a clinical trial.

Why the EU's plan to scrap clock changes stalled

The European Commission proposed ending seasonal clock changes on September 12, 2018, after a public consultation that drew about 4.6 million replies, 84% of them in favour of stopping the switch, according to the Commission's summertime page. The plan would have let each member state choose whether to stay on permanent summer or winter time. The European Parliament backed it on March 26, 2019, voting to end the changes by 2021.

The proposal then stalled in the Council of the EU, where governments must agree a common position. The Commission says the Council has not finalised that position. The underlying problem is coordination. If neighbouring countries picked different permanent times, the single market could end up with a patchwork of time zones, and no qualified majority has formed behind a single solution.

Spain tried to revive the file in October 2025. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the clock change "no longer makes sense," arguing that it barely saves energy and harms health, according to Catalan News. The push has not changed the rules: the directive still applies, which is why Europe's clocks go back again this Sunday.

Will the US stop changing its clocks?

The US debate runs the other way. Instead of standard time, Congress is weighing permanent daylight saving time. The House passed the Sunshine Protection Act (H.R. 139) by 308 to 117 on July 14, 2026, CBS News reported. The bill would keep clocks one hour ahead all year. President Donald Trump has backed it, while some lawmakers opposed it. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon pointed to the 1970s, saying permanent DST "was repealed within a year because it didn't work." The Senate passed a similar bill in 2022, but the House never acted on that version.

The current bill has not passed the Senate. The Hill reported that the Senate's schedule left it unlikely to become law before the November 1 change, so US clocks will fall back as usual. Even if it does pass, it would lock in the option sleep researchers rank second, not first.

What it means

For most readers, the practical answer is simple. Europe and the UK fall back at 01:00 UTC on October 25, North America follows on November 1, and the extra hour is the easier of the two yearly shifts for the body to absorb. Morning light and a steady wake-up time are the most useful tools for adjusting.

The bigger story is political. Scientists broadly agree that ending the switch would help, and sleep-medicine bodies favour permanent standard time. But the EU cannot agree on which time to keep, and the US is moving towards the option scientists like less. Until either changes, the twice-yearly reset continues: GOV.UK already lists March 28, 2027, for the next spring change and October 31, 2027, for the next autumn one.

For more explainers on health and research, see the Bullquill Science section and our explainer archive.

Sources

• GOV.UK: When do the clocks change?
• EUR-Lex: Directive 2000/84/EC on summer-time arrangements
• European Commission, Mobility and Transport: Summertime
• NIST: Daylight Saving Time (DST)
• Government of British Columbia: Permanent daylight saving time
• NIGMS (NIH): Circadian Rhythms fact sheet
• Rishi et al., Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine: Permanent standard time is the optimal choice for health and safety
• AASM: New position statement supports permanent standard time
• Czeisler et al. (1999), Science: Stability, precision, and near-24-hour period of the human circadian pacemaker
• Fritz et al. (2020), Current Biology: A chronobiological evaluation of the acute effects of daylight saving time on traffic accident risk
• University of Colorado Boulder via Newswise: Spring forward brings surge in fatal car crashes
• Weed and Zeitzer (2025), PNAS
• ScienceDaily: Stanford Medicine study summary
• Pew Research Center: Most countries don't observe daylight saving time
• Catalan News: Spain to push for end of daylight savings at European level
• CBS News: House passes bill to make daylight saving time permanent
• The Hill: Permanent daylight saving time bill's future uncertain after Senate adjourns