Spain and Europe time zones

How to use it

1. 1

   Read the map

   Each color is one hour of difference from UTC, with the live time in each zone. Tap a point to see its exact time zone.

2. 2

   Compare the clocks

   The cards show the time in each zone of Spain and Europe. Tap one to highlight every area with that time on the map and fly to it.

3. 3

   Check the changes

   Below the map you’ll find the clock change dates, solar noon in each Spanish city and why Spain uses Central European Time.

Spain’s time zones

Spain has two different times. Mainland Spain, the Balearic Islands, Ceuta and Melilla use Central European Time, like France and Germany (UTC+1 in winter, CET, and UTC+2 in summer, CEST). The Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa, use Western European Time, one hour less, like Portugal and the UK (UTC in winter and UTC+1 in summer). So when it’s noon in Madrid, it’s 11:00 in Tenerife.

In the time zone database phones and computers use, Spain has three zones (Europe/Madrid, Atlantic/Canary and Africa/Ceuta), because Ceuta and Melilla kept a different time until the mid-1980s. Today they share the mainland’s time all year.

Why Spain is on Central European Time

Almost all of mainland Spain lies west of the Greenwich meridian, the one that sets the time in Portugal and the UK. Spain kept Greenwich time from 1901, but at 11:00 p.m. on March 16, 1940, it moved its clocks forward 60 minutes to Central European Time, the time of Germany and France, and never went back. The Canary Islands, which had been an hour behind Greenwich since 1922, moved to Greenwich time in 1946.

You can see it in the sun. Solar noon, when the sun is highest, comes to Madrid at around 13:15 in winter and 14:15 in summer, and to A Coruña at around 14:34. It’s why the sun rises and sets later in Spain than in other countries on the same time, and it’s often given as one reason for Spain’s late lunch and dinner hours.

Mean solar noon = 12:00 + offset from UTC − 4 minutes for each degree of longitude east of Greenwich (or + 4 minutes for each degree west).

Spain and the US: the time difference

Mainland Spain is 6 hours ahead of New York and the rest of Eastern Time, and 9 hours ahead of Los Angeles and Pacific Time; the Canary Islands are one hour less. Both sides change their clocks, so the gap holds most of the year.

Most of the year, because the US and Europe don’t change on the same day: the US springs forward on the second Sunday in March and falls back on the first Sunday in November, while the European Union does it on the last Sundays of March and October. While one side has changed and the other hasn’t (in 2026, from March 8 to March 29 and from October 25 to November 1), the gap is one hour smaller. Worth remembering if you have a call or a flight in those weeks.

The debate over changing the clocks in Europe

The whole European Union changes its clocks at the same moment: forward on the last Sunday in March and back on the last Sunday in October, at 1:00 UTC (2:00 on the mainland and 1:00 in the Canary Islands), under Directive 2000/84/EC. In Spain it is applied by Royal Decree 236/2002.

In 2018 the European Commission ran a public consultation that drew 4.6 million responses, 84% in favor of ending the clock changes, and proposed doing so. The European Parliament approved it on March 26, 2019 (410 votes to 192), but member states haven’t agreed on which time to keep all year, and the proposal is still stuck in the Council.

In Spain, the government set up an expert committee on official time in 2018, and on October 20, 2025 it announced it would ask the EU to end the clock changes; the Commission offered to help find a common position. As of late October 2026 there is still no agreement, and the Commission has already published the change dates through 2031.

Clock change dates in 2026 and 2027

The next change is on Sunday, March 28, 2027, when clocks go forward one hour.

Europe’s time zones

From the Azores to Moscow. Most countries change their clocks on the same dates as Spain; Iceland, Turkey, Belarus and Russia don’t change them at all.