Clocks spring forward: Canary Islands now on summer time — perhaps for the last time

Since last night, clocks in the Canary Islands are running one hour ahead. At 1:00 AM the time jumped to 2:00 AM — the Canaries are now in the UTC+1 time zone, one hour behind the mainland. The night lasted only 23 hours. Smartphones and computers adjusted automatically; analogue clocks and car clocks need to be changed manually.

What this means in practice

For visitors from the UK, the Canary Islands are now on the same time (both UTC+1 during summer). For travellers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the one-hour difference remains: the Canaries stay one hour behind Central Europe. Sunset now shifts to around 8:00 PM instead of 7:00 PM — longer evenings for beach walks and terrace dinners.

The last change ever?

The current EU regulation on clock changes (Orden PCM/186/2022) expires in 2026. Whether there will be another change back to winter time in October is unclear — the EU must decide whether to abolish seasonal clock changes for good. Spain has so far supported permanent summer time, but a binding decision is still pending. This means the night of 29 March 2026 may have been the last clock change in the Canary Islands.