When Do the Clocks Change in Alaska?

Time Zones in Alaska

Alaska is not on a single clock. It spans 2 zones, which is why two places inside the same state can be an hour apart.

Where the line falls. The line falls between Unalaska and Adak in the Aleutian chain. Adak and the islands beyond it are an hour behind the rest of Alaska.

What Actually Changes: Sunrise and Sunset

The hour on the clock is not the part anyone notices. This is what the change does to daylight in Anchorage, comparing the day before with the day after.

The amount of daylight barely moves across those two days — roughly the same number of hours either side. What moves is where those hours sit: the clock change shifts them from the evening to the morning, or back again. Full sunrise and sunset detail for Anchorage.

What Stands Out About Alaska

The clock runs well ahead of the sun here

In Anchorage solar noon falls at 1:46 PM, which puts the clock 106 minutes ahead of the sun. States near the western edge of their time zone get long, late evenings in summer and mornings that stay dark well past the start of the school run in winter. It is the same rule everywhere; Alaska just sits at the far end of it.

A northern state feels the change hardest

Daylight in Anchorage swings by 13h 55m across the year, from 19h 23m at midsummer down to 5h 28m in December. Losing an hour of evening on top of that is why the November change lands so much harder in Alaska than it does in the south.

Dark before the working day ends

After the change the sun sets in Anchorage at 4:54 PM. For most of the winter that means leaving work in the dark, which is the single most common complaint about the November change and the reason states keep voting for permanent Daylight Saving Time they are not allowed to adopt.

The Next Clock Changes in Alaska

The next move is backwards, which is the one people notice: an hour more sleep, and sunset arriving before most of the working day is over. US clocks change on the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November. These are the next dates that rule produces for Alaska, computed from the current time zone rules rather than a fixed list — if the rules change, these dates change with them.

The Two Halves of Alaska

Right now the two sides of Alaska are 1 hour apart. That gap holds all year, because both sides change their clocks on the same dates — they simply start from different offsets.

Why Alaska Keeps the Clock It Does

Alaska ran on four separate time zones until 1983, when the state consolidated almost all of it into one so that government and business could share a working day. The cost is that Alaska's clock is wildly out of step with the sun at its edges — and the state still sees the largest seasonal daylight swing in the country by a wide margin.

The practical consequence is that every time difference involving Alaska shifts by an hour on Sunday, November 1, 2026. Anything recurring across that date — a standing call, an automated report, a flight connection — is worth checking, especially against places that change on a different date or not at all.

To check an exact gap on an exact date, use the time zone converter, or the meeting planner for a whole group at once.

Current Time in Alaska Cities