Phoenix does not observe daylight saving time in 2026 — and its offset of UTC−07:00 never changes. This page explains why, what that means for residents and for scheduling with places that do change their clocks, and how Phoenix compares with cities that observe daylight saving.

Try the tool: Daylight Saving Time Checker — check whether daylight saving is in effect in Phoenix right now, and when it next changes.

Daylight saving dates in Phoenix — 2026 and 2027

Year Clocks go forward Clocks go back
2026 — no clock change — no clock change
2027 — no clock change — no clock change

Why Phoenix does not observe daylight saving

Arizona opted out of daylight saving in 1968, under the federal law that lets states exempt themselves. The reason is the desert heat: an extra hour of evening sun would mean an extra hour of air conditioning, not an extra hour outdoors. The Navajo Nation inside Arizona does observe it.

What never changing means

For residents, nothing changes: the clocks are never moved, the Sun rises and sets at roughly the same clock time all year (with the natural seasonal drift), and there is no lost hour of sleep in spring and no repeated hour in autumn. For scheduling, the time in Phoenix is the easiest kind to work with — it is a fixed number, and the only thing that moves is the time in the place you are dealing with.

That does not mean the time difference never changes. The difference between Phoenix and New York is 2 hours behind in January and 3 hours behind in July, because New York changes its clocks and Phoenix does not. The difference with London is 7 hours behind in January and 8 hours behind in July. So if you schedule with a place that observes daylight saving, you still have to watch the change dates — they are the other side's dates, not Phoenix's.

Phoenix compared with other cities

How 2026 daylight saving compares in three major cities:

City 2026 clocks forward 2026 clocks back Standard offset Daylight offset
Phoenix — does not observe — UTC−07:00 —
London 29 March 2026 25 October 2026 UTC+00:00 UTC+01:00
New York 8 March 2026 1 November 2026 UTC−05:00 UTC−04:00

The comparison shows the two things that matter: whether the city observes daylight saving at all, and — if it does — whether it changes on the same dates as Phoenix. Cities that change on different dates have a shifting difference for a few weeks a year; cities that do not observe it at all have a difference that moves when Phoenix changes. The daylight saving time 2026 dates guide lists every zone's 2026 dates in one table.

Scheduling around the change

The rule for Phoenix is simple: your clocks never change, so your side of any meeting is fixed — but check the other side's change dates. If you meet weekly with New York, the meeting will move by an hour relative to New York on the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November. If you meet with London, it will move on the last Sunday of March and the last Sunday of October. Put the UTC time in the invitation and the problem goes away: a UTC event moves correctly when the other side's clocks change. The meeting planner shows the overlap for any two cities on any date.

Phoenix and the clock changes elsewhere

The time difference between Phoenix and another city is only constant if both cities change their clocks on the same dates — or if neither changes them at all. The table shows the difference in hours between Phoenix and New York and London in four months of 2026. A change between two columns means one of the two cities changed its clocks in between.

Difference with January April July October
New York -2h -3h -3h -3h
London -7h -8h -8h -8h

The classic trap is the three weeks in March: the United States changes its clocks on the second Sunday of March, and Europe does not change until the last Sunday of March, so for those three weeks the New York–London difference is 4 hours instead of 5, and every standing meeting between the two shifts by an hour. Phoenix is affected in the same way whenever its own change dates differ from the other side's. The time difference calculator works out the difference for any two cities on any date, and the meeting planner shows the overlap — use them for the weeks around the changes rather than trusting a remembered difference.

Daylight saving in the Americas

In the Americas, daylight saving is a patchwork. The United States and Canada observe it on the same dates — the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November — and most of Mexico's border region follows them, but Mexico itself abolished it in 2022. In South America, Chile and Paraguay still observe it; Brazil abolished it in 2019 and Argentina stopped in 2009. The Caribbean mostly does not observe it, and the equatorial countries — Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama — never have, because their day length barely changes. Phoenix sits in that patchwork, and its dates are the ones that matter for scheduling with it.

Frequently asked questions

Does Phoenix observe daylight saving in 2026?

No. Phoenix does not observe daylight saving, so there is no clock change in 2026 and the offset stays at UTC−07:00 all year.

Why does Phoenix not observe daylight saving?

Arizona opted out of daylight saving in 1968, under the federal law that lets states exempt themselves. The reason is the desert heat: an extra hour of evening sun would mean an extra hour of air conditioning, not an extra hour outdoors. The Navajo Nation inside Arizona does observe it.

What is Phoenix's UTC offset?

Phoenix is on UTC−07:00 in standard time, all year. Its IANA time zone is America/Phoenix.

When does daylight saving start in Phoenix in 2027?

Phoenix does not observe daylight saving, so there is no clock change in 2027 either.

What time zone is Phoenix in?

Phoenix is in the IANA time zone America/Phoenix, in United States. See the time in Phoenix page for the full explanation.

What happens if I schedule a meeting for 02:30 on the day the clocks change in Phoenix?

Nothing unusual happens in Phoenix, because its clocks never change — but check the other side: if the other city observes daylight saving, its 02:30 on its change day may not exist or may happen twice.

Sources

  • IANA Time Zone Database, via Node.js Intl (Intl.DateTimeFormat with timeZone) — offsets, daylight saving dates and local times in this article were worked out from the IANA database, not typed from memory.
  • TimeFlow's own time-zone data (data/cities.ts, data/dst.ts), computed from the IANA database.
  • TimeFlow's daylight saving checker — the live tool behind the dates on this page.
  • TimeFlow's own daylight saving data (data/dst.ts), computed from the IANA Time Zone Database.
  • Time-zone and daylight saving rules are set by governments and can change. For flights, deadlines and meetings that cannot move, confirm the time with an official source.