Spain, Portugal and Belgium will set their clocks back during the night of Saturday 24 to Sunday 25 October 2026, giving people an extra hour of sleep. On the Spanish mainland and the Balearic Islands, 3:00 will become 2:00, while the Canary Islands make the switch an hour earlier, when 2:00 becomes 1:00. Portugal's mainland and Madeira will move from 2:00 to 1:00, and the Azores, which run one hour behind the mainland, will go back to midnight. Belgium follows the Spanish pattern, with 3:00 becoming 2:00. Because of the change, Sunday 25 October will last 25 hours in Spain.
Phones, computers and other connected devices usually update automatically, provided automatic date and time settings are switched on. Analogue clocks, some household appliances and other devices without that function will need to be adjusted by hand. The shift also changes the light: the morning sun will rise an hour earlier, but evenings will lose an hour of daylight. Sunsets will therefore come earlier once the new time applies. Gradually adjusting daily routines can help people adapt to the darker evenings.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been one of the most outspoken critics of the practice. His earlier post on X made the case bluntly.
“Changing the time twice a year no longer makes sense. It barely helps save energy and has a negative impact on people's health and everyday lives.”
The Spanish government said it would ask the EU to end seasonal clock changes at the Energy Council, arguing that the change barely saves energy, harms health and follows a precedent in which the European Parliament voted to scrap it. The request was presented at a meeting of the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council. The European Commission supports the debate, but the directive that governs the practice, dated 19 January 2001, has not been changed. Member states still disagree on which time to keep, and fear of chaos is a second obstacle. The European Parliament approved a text in 2019 under which the EU would stop changing clocks, with member states free to keep summer or winter time if they coordinate. That text has not moved since, in part because of a series of crises and the difficulty of agreeing on one time. Adoption requires a qualified majority in the Council of the EU, meaning at least 15 countries representing 65% of the EU population. In Belgium, seasonal changes were introduced in the late 1970s to reduce lighting and energy use.
The EU has already published the clock-change dates for 2027 to 2031, even though it has not approved ending seasonal changes. Spain's current five-year calendar, published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) in March 2022, ends with the October 2026 change. The next scheduled change falls on the night of Saturday 27 to Sunday 28 March 2027, when clocks will move forward from 2:00 to 3:00 and summer time returns, if member states still have not agreed by then.
Until the rules change, Spain will keep moving its clocks forward in March and back in October, and the debate over whether to keep the system is expected to continue.
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Spain, Portugal and Belgium will move to winter time overnight from Saturday 24 to Sunday 25 October, giving people an extra hour of sleep. The European Union has yet to decide whether to scrap seasonal clock changes.
AI text based on reports by Notícias ao Minuto, La Razón, LaSexta and other publishers. Published .