Time in Stockholm

At almost 59.3° north, Stockholm has one of the widest daylight swings of any capital. Around the June solstice the sun rises near 3:30 AM and sets after 10:00 PM, roughly 18 hours 38 minutes of daylight, and the sky never gets fully dark. In late December the sun is up only from about 8:43 AM to 2:48 PM, a day of barely 6 hours. Midsummer Eve, on the Friday between June 19 and 25, is one of the biggest holidays of the Swedish year precisely because of that light.

Farther north the effect is stronger. Kiruna, above the Arctic Circle, has midnight sun in June and polar night in December, yet it keeps exactly the same clock as Stockholm.

Sweden first tried summer time in 1916, during the First World War, then dropped it. The modern arrangement began in 1980, when Sweden coordinated with its Nordic neighbors and the rest of Western Europe; since then clocks have moved on the EU schedule, which Sweden formally follows as a member state. The country runs about 18° east, three degrees east of the CET reference meridian, so solar noon in Stockholm comes around 11:46 in winter and 12:49 in summer by the clock.

Working days usually run 8:00 to 17:00, and July is the month when much of the country goes on holiday at once. Nasdaq Stockholm trades from 9:00 to 17:30. Stockholm is six hours ahead of New York most of the year, so 4:00 PM in Stockholm matches 10:00 AM in New York, and one hour ahead of London. When the US and Europe change clocks on different weekends, the New York gap drops to five hours. The CET to GMT page covers the London side hour by hour.