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India doesn't change its clocks, but your meetings, flights and family calls with London, Berlin or New York will shift by an hour. Here's the new time gap.
Europe turns its clocks back on Sunday 25 October 2026; the US and Canada follow on Sunday 1 November 2026. India does not observe daylight saving, so from those dates India will be one hour further ahead of London, most of Europe and North America. If you have a standing 6:30 pm IST call with London, it will now fall at 1:00 pm UK time instead of 2:00 pm.
| Region | Daylight saving ends | Local time of change | New standard time |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom & Ireland | Sun 25 Oct 2026 | 2:00 am BST → 1:00 am GMT | GMT (UTC+0) |
| European Union | Sun 25 Oct 2026 | Same instant, 01:00 UTC | CET (UTC+1) / EET (UTC+2) |
| United States & Canada (most areas) | Sun 1 Nov 2026 | 2:00 am → 1:00 am local | EST, CST, MST, PST |
| India | — | No change | IST (UTC+5:30) |
The EU and UK change at the same moment (01:00 UTC) because EU law (Directive 2000/84/EC) fixes the switch to the last Sunday of October across all member states. The US rule, set by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, uses the first Sunday of November.
Arizona (most of it) and Hawaii don't use daylight saving at all, so their gap with India stays the same.
| City | Gap before the change | Gap after the change |
|---|---|---|
| London | IST ahead by 4 h 30 m | IST ahead by 5 h 30 m |
| Paris / Berlin / Rome | IST ahead by 3 h 30 m | IST ahead by 4 h 30 m |
| Athens / Helsinki | IST ahead by 2 h 30 m | IST ahead by 3 h 30 m |
| New York / Toronto | IST ahead by 9 h 30 m | IST ahead by 10 h 30 m |
| Chicago | IST ahead by 10 h 30 m | IST ahead by 11 h 30 m |
| San Francisco / Vancouver | IST ahead by 12 h 30 m | IST ahead by 13 h 30 m |
Between 25 October and 1 November, Europe has already switched but North America hasn't. For that one week:
Calendar apps adjust automatically if each invite is created in the organiser's real time zone. Problems usually come from meetings typed in as fixed IST times or "UK time" in plain text.
The idea is to push one hour of daylight from the early morning, when most people are asleep, into the evening during summer. It was first adopted widely during the First World War to save fuel. Today the benefits are debated: some studies point to energy savings and fewer evening road accidents, while others link the spring change to disrupted sleep.
The European Parliament voted in 2019 to end seasonal clock changes, but member states never agreed on which time to keep, so the switch continues. In the US, the "Sunshine Protection Act" to make daylight saving permanent has been introduced several times without becoming law.
India sits close enough to the equator that day length changes far less across the year than in Europe. A single national time zone, IST (UTC+5:30), measured from the 82.5°E longitude near Mirzapur, keeps things simple. There have been proposals for a separate north-east time zone, but no change has been made.
Will my phone change automatically?
Phones set to "automatic time zone" will adjust for the local region. If you're in India, nothing changes on your phone.
When do clocks go forward again?
In the US on 14 March 2027 and in the UK/EU on 28 March 2027.
Does Australia change now too?
No. Australia is in the southern hemisphere, so its states that use daylight saving moved their clocks forward in early October.
Is GMT the same as UTC?
For everyday purposes, yes. UTC is the scientific standard; GMT is the UK's winter time.
India's clocks don't move, but the world around them does. From 25 October, Europe is an hour further away; from 1 November, North America is too. A two-minute check of your recurring meetings now saves a lot of missed calls next week.
