the date when winter time will return

The beginning of September is considered by many to be the end of summer, since a large part of the workers return to work around the aforementioned date or take advantage of the first weekend of the month to take a last vacation before the arrival of autumn.

However, the end of the summer period will only take place a few weeks later, on September 23, the day when we will officially leave summer to face the autumn period.

So, in Spain, a time change is made every year after the end of summer to adapt the schedules to the available sunshine and make the most of the hours of sunshine.

Origins of the time change

The time change is not new, the politician, inventor and one of the founding fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, already had the idea of ​​changing the time in the middle of the year to cushion the use of sunlight as much as possible.

Although the use of various schedules is now the norm, the idea that the politician had at the end of the 18th century has been completely discarded. Thus, it was not until centuries later that the first time change would be applied during the First World War, in 1916, with the aim of optimizing energy resources.

In Spain, time was generally governed by the Madrid meridian until the early 20th century, when the time was adapted to match that of other European countries.

Return to winter time

The time change has been established in most countries as something essential to save energy and enjoy as much sun as possible during the day. For this reason, in 1981 the European directive on time change was applied for the first time.

It stated that all member countries should adopt summer time on the last Sunday in March and return to winter time on the last Sunday in October.

Regarding the year 2024, the return to winter time will take place in the early hours of October 26 and 27, when all residents in Spain will have to set their clocks back one hour, since at 3 a.m. it is 2 a.m., which means that during that night there will be an extra hour of sleep.

In this way, the schedule will remain like this until the last Sunday of March 2025, the 30th of that month, that night it will return to summer time. Thus, at 2 a.m., the clock will advance 60 minutes, until 3 a.m., and there will be one hour less sleep.

The time change has been a constant in the European Union in recent decades. Despite this, some doubt its effectiveness, which is why these exchanges between schedules will be reviewed after 2026. For the moment, the planned time changes are as follows:

Advantages of winter time

Standard time seeks to optimize the hours of sunlight during the day, so that it can have health and safety benefits at the personal level, as well as great socio-economic benefits at the global level. Thus, the dampening of sunlight during the day can have the following benefits: