Daylight saving time FAQ 2026: the questions that actually matter this year

What this post is

A short reference for the daylight saving time (DST) questions that come up most often in 2026. Every date below was checked against the IANA tz database (release 2026e, plus the 2026f note on Cuba) and against the government or legislative source linked next to it. The full country-by-country picture is on the DST 2026 global overview hub.

Updated 5 November 2026: all 2026 northern-hemisphere transitions have now happened, and 2026 brought an unusual number of rule changes. The answers below reflect that.

When did DST start and end in 2026?

• United States and most of Canada: spring forward Sunday, March 8, 2026 at 02:00 local; fall back Sunday, November 1, 2026 at 02:00 local. The rule (second Sunday of March, first Sunday of November) comes from the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
• European Union (all 27 member states): Sunday, March 29 and Sunday, October 25, 2026, both at 01:00 UTC, under Directive 2000/84/EC. Every EU clock changes at the same instant: 02:00 local in Central European Time, 03:00 in Eastern European Time.
• United Kingdom: same dates and instant as the EU. The UK rule is set by its own Summer Time Order 2002, not by the EU directive.
• Mexico: only the municipalities on the U.S. border switch, on the U.S. dates. The rest of the country stopped changing clocks after October 30, 2022.
• Australia (NSW, Victoria, ACT, Tasmania, South Australia): DST ended Sunday, April 5, 2026 at 03:00 local and started again Sunday, October 4, 2026 at 02:00 local. Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory do not change.

Every country's 2026 transition dates

When are the next changes?

• U.S. and the Canadian provinces that still switch: Sunday, March 14, 2027 (spring forward, 02:00 local), then Sunday, November 7, 2027 (fall back).
• EU and UK: Sunday, March 28, 2027 (forward, 01:00 UTC), then Sunday, October 31, 2027 (back, 01:00 UTC).
• Australia's southern states: Sunday, April 4, 2027 (back, 03:00 local), then Sunday, October 3, 2027 (forward, 02:00 local).
• New Zealand: Sunday, April 4, 2027 (back, 03:00 local), then Sunday, September 26, 2027 (forward, 02:00 local).

Dates computed from IANA tzdata 2026e.

Which places stopped changing their clocks in 2026?

Several, mostly by staying on summer time permanently rather than abolishing it:

• British Columbia stayed on UTC−7 after the March 8, 2026 spring-forward and did not fall back on November 1 (Government of B.C.).
• Alberta and the Northwest Territories stayed on UTC−6 and did not fall back on November 1 (IANA tz releases 2026c and 2026d).
• Manitoba moved to permanent UTC−5 on October 31, 2026 (Government of Manitoba).
• Morocco returned to permanent UTC+0 on September 20, 2026, ending the UTC+1-with-Ramadan-exception system it had used since 2018 (IANA tz 2026c).
• Cuba announced on October 24, 2026 that it would not fall back on November 1 and would stay on UTC−4 until November 7, 2027 (IANA tz 2026f). Devices that have not received the 2026f update still show Cuba an hour behind.

Ontario, Quebec, the Atlantic provinces and the U.S. still switch. Saskatchewan and Yukon already did not.

If your software computes local time for any of these places, check which tzdata version it uses. A system on a tzdata release older than the change will show the wrong hour, without any error. The DST tracker lists the current status for each country, and the time zone converter applies the rules for any future date you pick.

Did the European Union abolish daylight saving time?

No. The European Parliament voted in March 2019 to end mandatory seasonal clock changes and let each country pick permanent summer or winter time. The Council of the EU has never agreed a position on the proposal, so it cannot become law. Directive 2000/84/EC is still in force and every member state still switches.

Is the Sunshine Protection Act law?

No, but it got further in 2026 than ever before.

• The bill would make daylight saving time the permanent standard time across the U.S.
• The Senate passed an earlier version by unanimous consent in March 2022. The House never voted on it and it expired with the 117th Congress.
• The current version, H.R. 139 (with a Senate companion, S. 29), passed the House on July 14, 2026 by 308 to 117. As passed, it lets states that already exempt themselves from DST (Hawaii, most of Arizona) stay on permanent standard time.
• As of November 5, 2026 the Senate has not voted on it. If the Senate does not pass it before the 119th Congress ends on January 3, 2027, the bill dies and would have to be reintroduced.

Until a bill is signed, the Uniform Time Act applies: states may opt out of DST and stay on standard time all year, but may not adopt permanent DST on their own. A Congressional Research Service summary dated October 19, 2026 counts 19 states with laws that would adopt permanent DST if federal law allowed it.

Which countries abolished DST in recent years?

• Mexico: no clock changes since October 30, 2022, except the U.S. border strip.
• Iran: stopped observing DST after 2022 (UTC+3:30 all year).
• Jordan and Syria: moved to permanent UTC+3 in 2022.
• Paraguay: moved to permanent UTC−3 in October 2024.
• Morocco: permanent UTC+0 from September 2026 (above).
• Egypt went the other way: it reinstated DST in 2023 after not using it since 2014.

Russia stopped seasonal clock changes in 2011 by staying on summer time, then moved its clocks back an hour in October 2014 and has stayed on that permanent standard time since. Turkey has stayed on UTC+3 since 2016.

Why does my recurring meeting move by an hour?

Because the invite is pinned to one zone, and at least one attendee is in a zone that does not observe DST or changes on a different date.

A 14:00 New York meeting is 23:30 in Kolkata in summer and 00:30 the next day in winter, because India does not observe DST. It is 19:00 in London for most of the year, but 18:00 during the weeks when only one side has changed.

The fix: pin recurring meetings to one named zone, write it in the invite ("Recurring at 09:00 America/New_York"), and re-pin when the host changes. The meeting across time zones playbook covers this in detail. To check a specific invite, enter its date in a mismatch week into the time zone converter.

Which weeks are New York and London out of step?

• March 8–29, 2026: the U.S. had sprung forward, Europe had not. New York was 4 hours behind London instead of 5, for three weeks.
• October 25 – November 1, 2026: Europe had fallen back, the U.S. had not. Again 4 hours instead of 5, for one week.
• 2027: March 14–28 and October 31 – November 7.

The 2027 mismatch weeks post lists these windows for the U.S., Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Chile.

Does DST save energy?

Not much. The U.S. Department of Energy's 2008 report to Congress on the four weeks added to DST in 2007 measured a saving of about 0.5% of electricity per day during those weeks, roughly 0.03% of annual U.S. electricity use. A study of Indiana's 2006 adoption of DST (Kotchen and Grant, 2011) found residential electricity use went up about 1%, because extra cooling and heating outweighed the lighting saved.

The public-health case is now the main argument in the debate. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine supports permanent standard time, citing short-term increases in heart attacks, traffic accidents and sleep loss after the spring transition.

Sources

• IANA Time Zone Database and its release notes for 2026c, 2026d and 2026f.
• EU Directive 2000/84/EC and the Council of the EU page on seasonal time changes.
• UK Summer Time Order 2002.
• Congress.gov: H.R. 139, Sunshine Protection Act of 2025.
• Congressional Research Service: State proposals to change DST observance (IG10102).
• U.S. Department of Transportation: Daylight Saving Time.
• Government of British Columbia: permanent daylight saving time and Government of Manitoba: time change.

FAQ

When is the next DST change in the United States?

Sunday, March 14, 2027 at 02:00 local, when clocks spring forward to 03:00. The 2026 fall-back happened on November 1.

When is the next DST change in the European Union?

Sunday, March 28, 2027 at 01:00 UTC, when clocks go forward. All member states change at the same instant.

Did the United States abolish DST in 2026?

No. The House passed the Sunshine Protection Act (H.R. 139) on July 14, 2026, but as of November 5, 2026 the Senate has not voted on it. The existing March-to-November schedule still applies.

Which Canadian provinces stopped changing their clocks in 2026?

British Columbia (permanent UTC−7), Alberta and the Northwest Territories (permanent UTC−6) and Manitoba (permanent UTC−5) did not fall back on November 1, 2026. Saskatchewan and Yukon already did not change. Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces still switch.

Why does India not observe DST?

India uses a single zone, Asia/Kolkata (UTC+5:30), and has not used daylight saving time since the Second World War. The IANA tz database records wartime offsets from October 1941 to October 1945 and no DST since. Reports of brief DST during the 1962, 1965 and 1971 wars are not confirmed in the database. At India's latitudes the seasonal change in day length is smaller than in Europe or North America, so the case for shifting clocks is weaker.