Daylight Saving Time ends in the United States at 2:00am local time on Sunday, November 1, 2026. Clocks go back one hour, to 1:00am. You get the hour back that you lost in March.
That's the short answer. The longer one is more interesting this year than usual, because there is a real chance it's one of the last times it happens.
What actually happens at 2am
At 2:00:00am local time, the clock jumps backwards to 1:00:00am. The 1am hour runs twice. Phones, computers and anything else that syncs to a time server handle it silently; ovens, car dashboards and wall clocks do not.
The key word is local. The change rolls across the country zone by zone rather than happening everywhere at once — 6:00am UTC for Eastern, then 7:00 for Central, 8:00 for Mountain, 9:00 for Pacific and 10:00 for Alaska. For about four hours that Sunday morning, the usual gaps between US zones are briefly wrong.
What it looks like where you live
The clock shift is exactly an hour, but what people actually notice is the evening. Take New York:
| Date | Sunrise | Sunset |
|---|---|---|
| Saturday, October 31 | about 7:25am | about 5:53pm |
| Sunday, November 1 | about 6:26am | about 4:51pm |
Sunset lands roughly an hour earlier overnight. The total amount of daylight barely moves — about 10 hours 28 minutes on the Saturday and 10 hours 25 on the Sunday. All that shifts is where it sits on the clock. You're not losing daylight, you're moving it from the evening to the morning.
Who doesn't change
Most of the country does, but not all of it. Staying on standard time all year:
- Hawaii
- Arizona — except the Navajo Nation, which does observe DST because its land also covers Utah and New Mexico. The Hopi Reservation, entirely enclosed by Navajo land, does not, so that corner of the state ends up with two clocks nested inside one another.
- Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa
Everyone else moves. Indiana used to be the famous exception, but it has observed DST statewide since 2006 — its split is about zones now, not clock changes.
The week when Europe is out of step
The UK and EU also end summer time in the autumn, but on a different date: Sunday, October 25, 2026, the last Sunday in October. The US doesn't follow until a week later.
So between October 25 and November 1, the familiar transatlantic gaps are all an hour smaller than usual:
| Pair | Normally | Oct 25 – Nov 1, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| New York ↔ London | 5 hours | 4 hours |
| New York ↔ Paris or Berlin | 6 hours | 5 hours |
| Los Angeles ↔ London | 8 hours | 7 hours |
This catches out recurring calendar invites every single year. The same thing happens in reverse each spring, when the US springs forward first — usually a two-week gap, though 2026 ran to three. In 2027 it's March 14 to March 28.
Is this the last fall back?
Possibly, but don't count on it. On July 14, 2026 the House passed the Sunshine Protection Act by 308 votes to 117, which would abolish the clock change and make today's daylight time the new standard time. President Trump has said he'd sign it.
The Senate hasn't acted. The bill was referred to committee on July 15 and no floor vote has been scheduled; the Senate returns from recess on September 14. Even if it moved quickly, nothing has been signed, so November 1 is going ahead as normal.
Worth knowing: the last time the US tried year-round DST, in 1974, it was cancelled early — inside ten months — once people had lived through winter sunrises well after 8:30am.
Dates for the next few years
Under the current rule — set by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and in force since 2007 — DST begins the second Sunday in March and ends the first Sunday in November.
| Year | Clocks forward | Clocks back |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Sunday, March 8 | Sunday, November 1 |
| 2027 | Sunday, March 14 | Sunday, November 7 |
| 2028 | Sunday, March 12 | Sunday, November 5 |
Worth remembering that the whole ritual is only a little over a century old, and that the reason we started doing it was wartime coal rationing, not farming.
If you're scheduling anything across zones through the changeover, drop both cities into the time zone converter or the meeting planner — they apply the right offset for the date rather than today's.
Frequently asked questions
When exactly does Daylight Saving Time end in 2026?
At 2:00am local time on Sunday, November 1, 2026. Clocks go back one hour to 1:00am, and the 1am hour is repeated. Because it happens at 2am local time rather than all at once, the change rolls across the country zone by zone over about four hours.
Do we gain or lose an hour in November?
You gain one. Clocks go back, so the night is an hour longer and most people get an extra hour of sleep. The trade is that sunset arrives about an hour earlier from that day on. In New York, sunset moves from around 5:53pm on October 31 to around 4:51pm on November 1.
When do the clocks change in 2027?
Forward on Sunday, March 14, 2027, and back on Sunday, November 7, 2027. The rule, in force since 2007 under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, is the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November. For 2028 it's March 12 and November 5.
Why do the US and Europe change clocks on different dates?
They follow different rules. The UK and EU end summer time on the last Sunday in October, which is October 25 in 2026, while the US waits until the first Sunday in November. That leaves one week when transatlantic time differences are an hour smaller than usual.