Govind Tekale
Clocks turned back one hour across the United Kingdom and the European Union overnight, ending summer time across the continent. If you have international meetings scheduled this week between North America and Europe, calendar blocks set using the standard time offset may now be off by one hour.
The clock changes happened at the same moment in Coordinated Universal Time — 1:00 AM UTC on Sunday, October 25. In the UK, clocks moved back at 2:00 AM British Summer Time, returning to 1:00 AM Greenwich Mean Time. On the European continent, the change occurred at 3:00 AM Central European Summer Time, reverting to 2:00 AM Central European Time. British Summer Time has ended; the UK is now on GMT. Continental Europe has shifted from CEST (UTC+2) to CET (UTC+1). The change affects all 27 EU member states and the United Kingdom.
The United States does not turn its clocks back until Sunday, November 1 — one week from today. That gap temporarily shrinks the transatlantic time difference by one hour. London is now 4 hours ahead of New York instead of the standard 5. For international financial markets, live sports broadcasts, and multinational corporate meetings scheduled using the standard time gap, the offset is off by one hour until the US catches up.
For anyone coordinating between European and North American offices this week, check recurring meeting invitations that were set up with a manually fixed UTC offset or with poorly configured time zone settings — those may reflect the standard offset rather than the current transitional one. Modern calendar apps that use current time zone databases generally handle the transition correctly. A London meeting at 3:00 PM now occurs at 11:00 AM in New York, not 10:00 AM, until November 1. Check your international scheduling tools and update any manually configured recurring invites before Monday morning.
European clocks fall back each year on the last Sunday of October, while the US and Canada fall back on the first Sunday of November — a divergence that has produced this annual one-week gap for decades. The European Parliament voted in 2019 to eliminate the biannual time switch, but EU member states have remained at an impasse over whether to standardize on permanent summer or permanent winter time. That debate remains unresolved.
The US falls back one week from today on November 1 — check back for a full guide on clocks, sleep schedule effects, and which devices adjust automatically.
