Daylight saving time 2026: When do clocks spring forward this year?

New Jerseyans will lose an hour of sleep on March 8, 2026, when Daylight Saving Time returns, despite growing public frustration with the biannual clock changes and ongoing debate about making the practice permanent.

At 2 a.m. on that Sunday, clocks will jump forward to 3 a.m. across most of the United States. The clocks will fall back on November 1, 2026, returning to standard time.

The sun will set at around 5:57 p.m. in New Jersey on Saturday, March 7. The following day, after the time shift and the end of standard time, sunset is at about 6:58 p.m.

However, the sun will rise nearly an hour later at about 7:21 a.m. on Sunday, March 8, after coming up at approximately 6:23 a.m. the previous day, making for darker mornings.

Spring officially arrives at 10:46 a.m. on Friday, March 20.

Feb. 4 marked the mid-point of winter. From here on, we’re closer to the spring equinox than the winter solstice, and the amount of daylight we have each day in New Jersey continues to increase.

The sun will set at 5:31 p.m. in Atlantic City and and 5:27 p.m. in Newark on Thursday, Feb. 12.

Hawaii and most of Arizona remain the only states that don’t observe the time changes, along with several U.S. territories including Puerto Rico and Guam. The Navajo Nation observes daylight saving time despite being located within Arizona.

While many Americans want to end the twice-yearly ritual, chronobiologists generally advocate for permanent standard time instead, arguing it better aligns people’s schedules with the sun year-round.

Till Roenneberg, a pioneering chronobiologist and sleep researcher, warned that permanent DST would make Europeans “dicker, dümmer und grantiger” (fatter, dumber, and grumpier).

“Any schedule that implies that you have to get up before sunrise may cause problems,” said Derk-Jan Dijk, a sleep and physiology professor at the University of Surrey.

The Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act in March 2022, which would have established permanent daylight saving time nationwide, but the House never voted on the legislation.

A similar bill, the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025 was introduced last January. The proposal would make Daylight saving time the new, permanent standard time.

Multiple states have passed laws supporting year-round daylight saving time, but they cannot implement the change without federal authorization.

The practice originated during World War I as a fuel-saving measure, not for agricultural purposes as commonly believed. The 1966 Uniform Time Act established the current national schedule after decades of local time chaos.