DST Rules by Country: The Complete Guide (Including the Weird Exceptions)
In March 2023, Lebanon effectively had two time zones for four days. The prime minister announced on Thursday, March 23, two days before the scheduled clock change, that daylight saving time would be postponed to April 21. Phones switched anyway. Several TV stations and churches refused to follow the delay and switched too. For a few days, whether it was 11 AM or noon in Beirut depended on which institution's clock you were using. The cabinet reversed the decision on Monday, March 27, and the clocks moved on Wednesday night, March 29 (Al Jazeera's report).
That's an extreme case, but it points at what most DST guides skip. The world isn't split into countries that "do DST" and countries that don't. It's split into countries that follow a steady rule, countries that dropped it, countries that changed it recently, and a few that keep changing their minds. If you schedule across borders, the version you grew up with (spring forward, fall back) is true for a shrinking slice of the world.
Why This Isn't Just a US, UK and EU Story
Most time zone content covers the same four regions: the US, the UK, the EU and Australia. They matter, and the exact 2026 dates for all of them are here. But they miss most of the interesting behaviour.
Several countries have dropped DST or stopped changing their clocks in recent years: Russia (2011, then 2014), Brazil (2019), Iran (2022), Mexico (2022, apart from the border), Paraguay (2024), and in 2026 Morocco, British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba. Not every country follows the trend: Egypt brought DST back in 2023. Southern Hemisphere countries that do change their clocks, such as Australia, New Zealand and Chile, run it backwards from a Northern Hemisphere reader's expectation: it starts around September or October and ends around April, because their summer is your winter.
📊 Timeanddate counts about 70 countries using daylight saving time in 2026, and lists the rest as stopped or never having used it. See its DST statistics page, since the list keeps changing.
DST Rules by Country and Region
This table covers the regions worth knowing beyond the standard set, plus a few edge cases. Clock-change dates shift a little from year to year, so use the DST 2026 page or the IANA Time Zone Database for exact dates. The rows below were checked against the time zone database.
| Country / Region | Observes DST? | Pattern |
|---|---|---|
| United States, Canada (most provinces) | Yes | Spring forward 2nd Sunday March, fall back 1st Sunday November. Saskatchewan and Yukon never change; British Columbia stopped after March 8, 2026, and Alberta and Manitoba keep summer time from November 1, 2026 |
| Mexico | Only border towns | Abolished nationally in 2022; municipalities on the US border, such as Tijuana and Matamoros, still follow the US dates |
| UK, EU (as a bloc) | Yes | Last Sunday March to last Sunday October |
| Russia | No | Last seasonal change March 2011, then permanent summer time until October 26, 2014, when it moved back to permanent standard time |
| Brazil | No | Observed it in the southern and south-eastern states until February 2019, then abolished it by decree in April 2019 |
| Iran | No | Abolished in 2022; the last change was in September 2022 |
| Egypt | Yes | Used DST until 2010, dropped it from 2011 to 2013, ran it briefly in 2014, none from 2015 to 2022, and reinstated it in April 2023 |
| Morocco | No (since Sept 2026) | Ran UTC+1 almost year-round from 2018 to 2026, with UTC+0 for Ramadan each year, then moved to permanent UTC+0 on September 20, 2026 |
| Chile (continental) | Yes | Observes it, but the dates have shifted several times in recent years |
| Paraguay | No (since 2024) | Observed for decades, then kept the summer offset (UTC-3) permanently from October 2024 |
| Lebanon | Yes, but volatile | The 2023 postponement was reversed within days |
| Australia, New Zealand | Partial | New South Wales, Victoria, the ACT, South Australia, Tasmania and all of New Zealand observe it (reversed seasons); Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia don't |
| India, China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore | No | Fixed offset all year |
| Most of Africa | No | Most African countries have never observed DST, or dropped it long ago |
The Exceptions That Teach You Something
Morocco Dropped Its Ramadan Clock Flip
From 2018 until September 2026, Morocco ran UTC+1 for most of the year and moved back to UTC+0 for the month of Ramadan, then returned to UTC+1. It was driven by fasting and prayer schedules, not by daylight economics. On September 20, 2026, Morocco moved to UTC+0 all year, and the Ramadan switch ended.
It's recent enough that plenty of reference material still describes the old system. If you schedule with Morocco, check the current offset rather than trusting a rule you read a year ago.
Mexico Kept DST Only at the Border
When Mexico abolished DST nationwide in 2022, municipalities along the US border kept following the US dates. The logic is practical: Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez do enough daily business with San Diego and El Paso that running on a different schedule from their neighbour would cost more than the clock change does. The rest of Mexico stays on fixed time all year.
Russia and Brazil
Russia went from seasonal DST, to permanent summer time in 2011, to permanent standard time in 2014. The 2011 permanent summer time was unpopular because it kept the winter mornings dark until late. Brazil's 2019 decree ended a practice dating from the mid-1980s that was introduced to save energy; the government said it no longer saved enough to be worth the disruption. Brazil has reconsidered it since: in 2024, during a drought, it came close to bringing DST back, so don't treat it as settled for ever.
Lebanon's 2023 Postponement
The Lebanese government announced the postponement on March 23, two days before the clocks were due to change on the night of March 25. Local reports pointed to Ramadan as the reason. Phones, several TV stations and many institutions switched on the original date anyway, so the country ran on two local times until the cabinet reversed the decision on March 27 and the clocks moved on the night of March 29. It's a clear example of what happens when a DST rule changes with too little notice: the rule becomes ambiguous exactly when people need it to be reliable.
What to Do With This
Memorising every country's rule is the wrong goal, because a handful of them change every few years. Three habits work better:
- Don't guess a country's DST from its neighbours or hemisphere. Argentina and Chile share a long border and a hemisphere, and only Chile changes its clocks.
- Check twice a year, not once. A country that observed DST last year might not this year, especially where policy has been unstable.
- Use a tool that follows the time zone database, which is updated when a country changes its rule. The time zone converter reads the rules from your browser, so keep the browser up to date, and for anything important check the date against the country's announcement.
Related Articles
- Daylight Saving Time 2026: When Does It Start and End?: the 2026 clock-change dates for the US, UK, EU, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
- US Time Zones Explained: EST, CST, MST, PST and How They Work: how DST affects each of the four main US zones.
- How to Calculate Time Difference Between Two Countries: why the gap between two countries can move by an hour with the season.
Related glossary terms: What Is DST? · IANA Time Zone Database · Solar Time vs Civil Time