When does daylight saving time end in 2026? Clocks fall back Sunday, Nov. 1, at 2 a.m.

If your phone or a European friend says the clocks changed this weekend, don’t reach for the oven clock just yet. In the United States, daylight saving time ends on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, at 2 a.m. local time, one week from today. At that moment clocks move back one hour to 1 a.m. standard time, and most Americans get an extra hour of sleep.

Europe is a different story. Clocks there fell back on Sunday, Oct. 25, a week ahead of the U.S., according to timeanddate.com. That gap explains a lot of the confusion this weekend.

When do clocks fall back in 2026?

According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), daylight saving time in 2026 runs from March 8 at 2 a.m. to Nov. 1 at 2 a.m. local time. Under federal rules in place since 2007, DST:

• begins at 2 a.m. on the second Sunday of March, when clocks jump ahead to 3 a.m.
• ends at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of November, when local time becomes 1 a.m. again and that hour repeats

That means the night of Saturday, Oct. 31, into Sunday, Nov. 1, will be 25 hours long. Halloween revelers will be among the first to notice.

Most smartphones, computers and connected devices update on their own. Microwaves, ovens, car dashboards and older wall clocks usually do not.

Did the time change today?

Not in the U.S. As of Sunday, Oct. 25, American clocks are still on daylight time. The change that happened overnight was in Europe, where daylight saving time ended on Oct. 25, timeanddate.com reports. If you have calls, flights or meetings with people in the U.K. or the European Union this week, the usual time difference between you will be one hour shorter until the U.S. catches up on Nov. 1.

Which states and territories don’t change their clocks?

Clocks fall back in 48 states. According to timeanddate.com, these places stay on standard time all year and will not change:

• Hawaii
• Most of Arizona. The Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona is the exception and does observe DST.
• U.S. territories: American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands

When does daylight saving time start again?

Clocks spring forward again on Sunday, March 14, 2027, in places that still change, according to timeanddate.com.

Is daylight saving time ending permanently?

Not yet, and not before this year’s switch.

The House passed the Sunshine Protection Act (H.R. 139) on July 14, 2026, by a vote of 308-117, both The Hill and timeanddate.com report. The bill would make daylight saving time permanent nationwide, while areas that already skip DST, such as Hawaii and most of Arizona, would not have to adopt it.

The bill has stalled in the Senate. It was sent to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, and no floor vote is scheduled, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive, which described the measure as dead for this year. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Politico there is “no clear path forward or consensus on it yet,” The Hill reported on Oct. 6.

President Donald Trump supports the change and has pushed GOP senators to act. In a Truth Social post quoted by The Hill, he called the twice-yearly switch a “ridiculous Clock changing process” and said most people prefer “an hour of extra sunlight in the evening, rather than in the morning.”

Opposition remains. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas has argued that permanent DST “would push winter sunrises to an absurdly late hour,” as quoted by timeanddate.com, which also cites concerns about children walking to school in the dark.

19 states are waiting on Congress

Federal law lets states stay on standard time all year, as Hawaii and Arizona do. It does not let states adopt year-round daylight saving time on their own. Even so, 19 states have passed laws to move to permanent DST if Congress allows it, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures as cited by The Oregonian/OregonLive. They include Texas, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Washington and Oregon. In Idaho and Oregon, the change would apply only to the Pacific time zone portion of the state.

Why do we still change the clocks?

According to NIST, the current schedule comes from the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which took effect in 2007 and added about a month to daylight saving time to save energy. DST now lasts 238 days, or about 65% of the year. Congress kept the right to go back to the old rules if the change proved unpopular or did not save much energy.

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