Daylight Saving Time Ends Sunday: Boston Sunsets Drop to 4:37 p.m.

Daylight saving time ends in Boston at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, when clocks fall back one hour to 1 a.m. The change gives Boston-area residents an extra hour of sleep on Halloween night, but it also moves sunset from 5:39 p.m. on Saturday to 4:37 p.m. on Sunday, according to U.S. Naval Observatory data for the city.

When daylight saving time ends and why

Under current federal rules, daylight saving time begins at 2 a.m. on the second Sunday of March and ends at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of November, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. In 2026, that put daylight saving time in effect from March 8 to Nov. 1.

NIST says the schedule was set by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which took effect in 2007 and lengthened daylight saving time by about a month. Daylight saving time now lasts 238 days, or about 65% of the year. Time zones and daylight saving time are regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation, not NIST, the agency notes.

Most phones and computers adjust automatically. NIST advises keeping operating systems updated, and says radio-controlled clocks that receive its WWVB signal should switch on their own. Older “auto-set” clocks made before the 2007 rule change may switch on the wrong date and need a manual fix.

What the data shows: Boston’s sunsets through winter

The Boston Report pulled daily and weekly sunrise and sunset times for downtown Boston from the U.S. Naval Observatory for October 2026 through March 2027. The figures show how sharply evenings shorten in the weeks after the clock change.

Source: U.S. Naval Observatory; table: The Boston Report.

Boston Report calculations from that data show:

• Evenings lose 62 minutes overnight. Sunset moves from 5:39 p.m. on Oct. 31 to 4:37 p.m. on Nov. 1: the one-hour clock shift plus two minutes of natural seasonal change.
• Mornings gain light. Sunrise jumps from 7:16 a.m. to 6:18 a.m., which helps early commuters and students for a few weeks.
• Sunset falls 2 hours 15 minutes from Oct. 1 to its December low. It drops from 6:26 p.m. to 4:11 p.m., reached on Dec. 8 and Dec. 9.
• The earliest sunset is not on the shortest day. Sunset on the Dec. 21 solstice is 4:15 p.m., four minutes later than the early-December low, while the latest sunrises, around 7:13 a.m., come in early January.

Sunsets climb back past 5 p.m. in early February, and daylight saving time returns on March 14, 2027, the second Sunday of March, under the federal rule.

What darker evenings mean around Boston

Earlier darkness matters for evening commuters, walkers and cyclists. The city has been expanding street lighting upgrades, which hit a record 7,202 in 2026, according to our earlier report. Anyone planning an afternoon walk in the city’s parks, such as the late-fall programs in our Arnold Arboretum guide, will have about an hour less evening light starting Sunday.

The time change also lands right after Halloween night. Anyone returning late from Salem or a Boston party on Saturday should remember that 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. repeats, so the night is one hour longer. Our Halloween week guide has more on weekend events.

Massachusetts remains on the federal schedule. Under federal law, a state may exempt itself and stay on standard time all year, but it cannot adopt permanent daylight saving time on its own, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. NIST notes that Arizona and Hawaii are among the places that do not observe daylight saving time.

Sources

• NIST: Daylight Saving Time Rules
• U.S. Naval Observatory: Sun and Moon Data for One Day (Boston, 42.36 N, 71.06 W)
• U.S. Department of Transportation: Daylight Saving Time

Additional sources

• NCSL: Daylight Saving Time state legislation
• U.S. Naval Observatory: Astronomical Applications API documentation

Featured photo: Meihe Chen, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (file photo of the Custom House Tower clock in Boston).