When Do the Clocks Change?

What does "spring forward, fall back" mean?

"Spring forward, fall back" is the mnemonic for the two clock changes that bracket the daylight-saving period each year: in spring the clocks jump forward by one hour, and in autumn they fall back by one hour. The transition happens in the small hours of a Sunday — most commonly at 1, 2, or 3 a.m. local time — so it disrupts the fewest schedules.

The two changes work differently. At the spring change the local clock skips an hour: in the United States, "at 2 a.m. the local time skips ahead to 3 a.m. so there is one less hour in that day."¹ At the autumn change the clock repeats an hour: "at 2 a.m. the local time becomes 1 a.m. and that hour is repeated, so there is an extra hour in that day."¹ The result is one 23-hour day each spring and one 25-hour day each autumn.

Only the clock face moves. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) — the global reference from which every local time is offset — has no seasonal change, and the length of the day itself is unaffected. The clocks simply read an hour later through the summer, then return to standard time for the winter. For what daylight saving is and why it exists, see daylight saving time.

What are the upcoming clock-change dates?

The tables below give the next clock changes for the three largest rule-sets — the United States, the European Union and United Kingdom, and south-eastern Australia. Each date is derived from the region's fixed rule rather than looked up, so the listing holds true year after year. Times of the change are local: the United States at 2 a.m., the United Kingdom and European Union in the small hours of the morning, and Australia's observing states at 2 a.m.

In the southern hemisphere the seasons are reversed, so Australia's "clocks go back" date in April ends the daylight-saving period that began the previous October — the opposite order to the northern-hemisphere regions, where the forward change comes first in the calendar year.

When do the clocks change in the United States?

In the United States, daylight saving time begins at 2 a.m. local time on the second Sunday of March and ends at 2 a.m. local time on the first Sunday of November.¹ These dates were set by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which lengthened daylight saving time in the interest of reducing energy consumption, and have applied since 2007.¹ Before 2007, daylight saving time ran from the first Sunday of April to the last Sunday of October, so the present period is about a month longer.

Not every part of the country takes part. Daylight saving time is not observed in Hawaii or Arizona — with the exception of the Navajo Nation within Arizona, which observes it to stay aligned with its territory in neighbouring states — nor in American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, or the US Virgin Islands.¹ Where a state does observe daylight saving, it must use the federal dates; a state may stay on permanent standard time but cannot set its own changeover days.

When do the clocks change in the United Kingdom and Europe?

In the United Kingdom and across the European Union, the clocks go forward on the last Sunday of March and back on the last Sunday of October. The United Kingdom moves its clocks forward by one hour at 1 a.m. on the last Sunday in March — the start of British Summer Time — and back by one hour at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in October.⁴ Across the European Union, a single bloc-wide rule applies: the summer-time period begins at "1.00 a.m., Greenwich Mean Time, on the last Sunday in March" and ends at "1.00 a.m., Greenwich Mean Time, on the last Sunday in October."² (The directive is written in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT); for the purpose of scheduling these changes it is equivalent to UTC.) The United Kingdom kept the same dates after leaving the European Union, retaining them in domestic law.

Because the United States and Europe change on different Sundays, the usual time difference between them is briefly out of step. For roughly two to three weeks each March, the United States has already sprung forward while Europe has not; for about a week each autumn the gap opens again. During those windows a call between, say, New York and London lands an hour off the offset people expect for the rest of the year.

When do the clocks change in Australia?

In the Australian states and territories that observe daylight saving — New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and the Australian Capital Territory — clocks go forward by one hour at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of October and back by one hour at 3 a.m. on the first Sunday of April.³⁵ October falls in the southern-hemisphere spring, so the forward change there coincides with the season the mnemonic describes, even though the calendar months are the opposite of the northern hemisphere's.

Queensland, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory do not observe daylight saving time, and their clocks stay on standard time all year.⁵ This means that for the southern summer the eastern Australian states run an hour ahead of Queensland, despite sharing the same standard time zone for the rest of the year.

Will the clocks stop changing twice a year?

Not yet, in either Europe or the United States. The European Parliament voted on 26 March 2019 to end the mandatory twice-yearly change and let each member state choose a permanent time, but the proposal has been stalled in the Council of the European Union — where national governments must agree — ever since.⁶ As of late 2025 the file was still unresolved: the most recent plenary debate was on 23 October 2025, and the European Commission has commissioned further analysis before any decision.⁶ Until the Council acts, the directive remains in force and European clocks keep changing.

In the United States, repeated bills to make daylight saving time permanent — most recently the Sunshine Protection Act — have passed neither chamber into law, so the Energy Policy Act of 2005 dates remain in effect.¹ The full policy story, including the energy and health arguments, sits with the daylight saving time concept page, while the roundup of countries without daylight saving time lists the places that never change their clocks.

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