What time does it get dark tonight? UK sunset times

At 2am BST on Sunday 25 October 2026 the clocks went back to 1am GMT. The Sun itself sets only 2 minutes earlier than the day before, but clock times move back an hour, so in London sunset moved from 17:49 BST to 16:47 GMT. After that, sunsets keep getting earlier by a minute or two a day until mid-December. The UK rule, from GOV.UK, is back 1 hour at 2am on the last Sunday in October and forward 1 hour at 1am on the last Sunday in March. See when the clocks change for every date to 2030.

In London the earliest sunset of 2026 is on Saturday 12 December 2026, at 15:51 GMT, and it sets at that same minute from Thursday 10 December to Monday 14 December. In Edinburgh the earliest is Monday 14 December, at 15:38. The shortest day, Monday 21 December 2026, has the least daylight (7 h 49 m in London), but its sunset is already a little later, at 15:53. The earliest sunset comes before the shortest day because the time of solar noon drifts later through December (the equation of time, caused by the Earth’s tilt and its elliptical orbit), which moves sunset and sunrise later too.

“Dark by about” is the end of civil twilight, when the centre of the Sun is 6° below the horizon. After that, outdoor activities need lights and the brightest stars are visible. The sky keeps darkening through nautical twilight (12° below) and astronomical twilight (18° below). Sunset is when the top of the Sun drops below a flat horizon, allowing for refraction. Times are for each town centre and rounded to the minute; London and Edinburgh agree with the US Naval Observatory tables to within 2 minutes. Hills, buildings and cloud can make it look darker sooner. In the far north in midsummer the Sun may never go 6° below the horizon, and the picker then says “no full dark”.

Town coordinates: the nine cities from the clocks page, plus each added town’s primary coordinates on English Wikipedia.