When is the next time clocks change and do I have to set them an hour forward or back?

The final time change of the year, from summer to winter, will take place as usual on the last weekend of October in the early hours of Saturday 26 to Sunday 27, when 3am goes back to 2am on the Spanish mainland.

In the following years, the change will occur sooner, as announced by the Spanish government. The dates on which the time will change to adapt to winter time are as follows:

2024: Sunday, 27 October.

2025: Sunday, 26 October.

2026: Sunday, 25 October.

The change to winter time will mean that dawn and dusk will come earlier, so the days will seem to be shorter.

Spain's BOE (official state gazette) published, a couple of years ago, the beginning and end of the summer and winter time periods until 2026. In this way, Spain confirms that the time change will be maintained despite some opposition from the ARHOE-Comisión Nacional para la Racionalización de Horarios Españoles (national commission for the rationalisation of Spanish timetables), which rejects this measure mainly because of its repercussions on health and people.

On 7 September 2018, a commission of experts was set up to study the reform of the official time, with the task of drawing up an evaluation report on the provisions governing the time changeover and on the advisability of maintaining Central European Time in Spain.

In its report, dated 20 March 2019, the commission concluded, on the one hand, that it was not advisable to bring about any hasty change in time zones until there was a shared consensus and a practical spread to citizens of the risks.

In February 2018, at Finland's proposal, the European parliament voted on the possibility of ending the time change. Despite receiving 384 votes against and only 153 in favour, the European parliament pledged to study the feasibility of the time change and opened a public consultation, in which more than 80% of the 4.6 million citizens who took part were in favour of ending time changes.

The main elements of the proposal that reached Europe were the abolition of biannual time changes in all EU countries and that EU countries wishing to change their official time should use a notification system. Before the pandemic, the presidency provided information on the state of play of the commission's proposal on seasonal time change. The presidency has developed a tool to assess the amount of daylight in three different scenarios. However, the council has not yet reached a common position on this issue. A qualified majority of member states is needed to constitute the council's position.

The European parliament adopted its position on the proposal in March 2019: it voted in favour of abolishing summer and winter timetables in 2021.The council and the European parliament have to reach an agreement in order to adopt the necessary legislative act to abolish the seasonal time change. And as long as they do not agree and this decision is not taken, the time change remains blocked year after year, season after season.

In Europe, changing the time in spring and autumn is a custom that existed before the European Union. It was first introduced during the First World War, to save energy, and was reintroduced in many countries in the 1970s. The first EU legislation on summer and winter time dates back to 1980: a directive coordinating the methods in force in various countries to help ensure the smooth functioning of the single market.

The current directive entered into force in 2001. Under its provisions, all member states switch to summer time on the last Sunday in March and return to their official time (winter time) on the last Sunday in October.