Clocks reset to Winter Time at 2am on Monday morning

For everyone who has struggled to get up in the morning in the dark, the light is returning (briefly, that is)!

Mainland Portugal and the autonomous regions of Madeira and the Azores will turn their clocks back one hour in the early hours of Sunday (October 25), marking the start of winter time.

In the Autonomous Region of the Azores, the change will be made at 1am Sunday, returning to midnight. On the mainland, it will happen at 2am, resetting to 1am.

For early risers, it means it will no longer be pitch dark at 7am… but the darkness will start creeping back as winter progresses.

The legal time will then change back again (to Summer Time) on March 28, 2027.

The current time change system is regulated by a directive (Community law) from 2000, which provides that every year clocks are, respectively, moved forward and back one hour on the last Sunday in March and the last Sunday in October.

In March, a European Commission source had said a study aimed at ending the time change would be presented this year.

The debate over seasonal clock changes has been taking place in the European Union since at least 2018.

In 2019, the European Parliament voted in favour of ending clock changes by 2021, following a public consultation by the European Commission, in which 84% of the 4,6 million respondents expressed that position. However, the measure never moved forward due to a lack of consensus in the Council of the European Union, where the ministers of Member States (including Portugal) dug in their heels.

Source: LUSA