Overnight on Saturday, October 24, into Sunday, October 25, Portugal will switch to winter time, with clocks going back one hour. On mainland Portugal and Madeira, clocks will go back from 2 am to 1 am; in the Azores, from 1 am to midnight. Sunday will be 25 hours long, so you can enjoy an extra hour in bed. Smartphones and computers will update automatically, but clocks in your car, oven and microwave will need to be adjusted manually.
In winter, Portugal follows UTC+0, the same time zone as London. The time difference with Spain and most of the EU remains unchanged at one hour. Summer time will return on March 28, 2027.
The clock-change schedule is set out in a 2000 EU directive: summer time begins on the last Sunday in March and ends on the last Sunday in October. Efforts to abolish the practice across the EU have been underway since 2018. That year, 84% of the 4.6 million people who took part in a European Commission survey voted in favour of scrapping the clock change. In 2019, the European Parliament voted to end the practice from 2021, but EU member states failed to reach an agreement.
In October 2025, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez proposed revisiting the issue and scrapping the clock change as early as 2026. No decision has been made so far, and seasonal clock changes remain mandatory across the EU.
