Current time in London
London uses Greenwich Mean Time (UTC+0) in winter and British Summer Time (UTC+1) from late March to late October. The live clock shows which one applies today, with sunrise, sunset and a conversion table for the cities people call most.
- Time zone
- —
- Abbreviation
- —
- UTC offset
- —
- Daylight saving
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- Compared with your clock
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- IANA time zone:
- Europe/London
- Country:
- United Kingdom
- Coordinates:
- 51.51° N, 0.13° W
- Clock changes in 2026:
- forward on March 29, 2026 · back on October 25, 2026 (UTC+0 / UTC+1)
GMT, BST and the clock changes
Clocks in the UK go forward one hour at 1:00 AM GMT on the last Sunday of March and back one hour at 2:00 AM BST on the last Sunday of October. In 2026 that means March 29 and October 25. The rest of the European Union changes on the same Sundays at the same instant, so London stays one hour behind Paris, Berlin and Madrid all year.
The United States changes on different dates, the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November. For a few weeks each spring and autumn London is only four hours ahead of New York instead of five, and a recurring transatlantic meeting moves by an hour on one side. The GMT to EST page shows the hour-by-hour table for those weeks.
When to call London
Hours that fall inside 9:00–17:00 both in London and in the other city, using today's offsets.
Daylight in London
Monday, October 19, 2026, local time
- Sunrise
- 7:31 AM
- Sunset
- 5:58 PM
- Day length
- 10 h 28 min
- Solar noon
- 12:45 PM
| Date | Sunrise | Sunset | Day length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon, Oct 19 | 7:31 AM | 5:58 PM | 10 h 28 min |
| Tue, Oct 20 | 7:32 AM | 5:56 PM | 10 h 24 min−4′ |
| Wed, Oct 21 | 7:34 AM | 5:54 PM | 10 h 20 min−4′ |
| Thu, Oct 22 | 7:36 AM | 5:52 PM | 10 h 16 min−4′ |
| Fri, Oct 23 | 7:38 AM | 5:50 PM | 10 h 13 min−3′ |
| Sat, Oct 24 | 7:39 AM | 5:48 PM | 10 h 9 min−4′ |
| Sun, Oct 25 | 6:41 AM | 4:46 PM | 10 h 5 min−4′ |
Approximate times (usually within two minutes), calculated from the city's coordinates with the NOAA solar equations. Hills, tall buildings and unusual air refraction can shift what you see.
Why the world counts from Greenwich
The Royal Observatory in Greenwich, in south-east London, defines longitude 0°. The International Meridian Conference of 1884 chose it largely because most of the world's shipping charts already used it. GMT became the civil time reference, and UTC, which replaced it for science in the 1960s, is kept within a second of it. In everyday use the two are interchangeable, which is why London's winter time is often written simply as UTC.
Because London is so far north, daylight swings widely: about 16 hours 38 minutes at the June solstice, when the sun sets after 9:20 PM, and about 7 hours 50 minutes in late December, when it sets before 4:00 PM. The sunrise table above follows those changes day by day.
Working with London hours
Offices generally run 9:00 to 17:30, and the London Stock Exchange trades from 8:00 to 16:30. A morning in London overlaps with the afternoon in Dubai, Mumbai and Singapore, and a London afternoon overlaps with the morning on the US East Coast, which makes the city a natural bridge for global calls. To check another pair of zones at a specific hour, use the time zone converter.
Nearby cities and their time
| Nearby cities | Distance | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| Paris France | 340 km | +1 h |
| Amsterdam Netherlands | 360 km | +1 h |
| Dublin Ireland | 460 km | same time |
| Zurich Switzerland | 780 km | +1 h |
| Berlin Germany | 930 km | +1 h |
| Madrid Spain | 1,260 km | +1 h |
Frequently asked questions
- Is London on GMT or BST right now?
- The clock card at the top of this page says which: BST (UTC+1) from the last Sunday of March to the last Sunday of October, GMT (UTC+0) the rest of the year.
- When do the clocks go back in London?
- On the last Sunday of October at 2:00 AM BST, when clocks return to 1:00 AM GMT. In 2026 that is October 25; in 2027 it is October 31.
- Is London time the same as UTC?
- Only in winter. During GMT the offset is zero, so London matches UTC. During British Summer Time London is one hour ahead of UTC.
- How far ahead of New York is London?
- Usually five hours. For about three weeks in March and one week around late October and early November, the gap is four hours, because the UK and the US change clocks on different Sundays.
- Does all of the UK use London time?
- Yes. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland share one time zone and change clocks together. Ireland, Portugal and Iceland also sit on UTC+0 in winter, though Iceland stays on it all year.