It is 2:08 pm in Europe/Madrid

Europe/Madrid is the IANA identifier for the time zone of Madrid in Spain. It is running at UTC+2 right now, abbreviated CEST, and the local date is Saturday, September 26, 2026. The zone is on its summer offset at the moment.

What time is it in Europe/Madrid right now

2:08 pm on Saturday, September 26, 2026, as this page was served, which in 24 hour form is 14:08. The clock above ticks on from there in your own browser. The offset is a whole 2 hours ahead of UTC, so a UTC timestamp converts here by changing the hour and leaving the minutes exactly as they are.

49 other zones read UTC+2 at this instant. They are interchangeable as a clock reading today and not as an identifier: storing UTC+2 instead of Europe/Madrid throws away the rule that decides what they all do at the next transition.

The UTC offset of Europe/Madrid

An offset of UTC+2 names the meridian 30.0 degrees east. Madrid, Spain actually sits at 3.70 degrees west, which is 33.7 degrees west of it, so the sun there runs about 135 minutes behind the clock before daylight saving is even considered. Zone boundaries are drawn by borders and by convenience, not by longitude, and this is the size of the gap that produces.

Because this zone moves its clocks, UTC+2 is only today's answer. It runs at UTC+1 for the winter part of the year and UTC+2 for the summer part, a difference of 1 hour, and any gap memorised against it is wrong for part of the year.

Daylight saving in Europe/Madrid

Europe/Madrid does observe daylight saving. The next change is on October 25, 2026: at 2:00 am local the clocks go back, and UTC+2 becomes UTC+1. That hour is repeated, so every reading inside it happens twice, which is why a wall clock time in this zone is not always a single instant.

Every clock change the database has for this zone in 2025, 2026 and 2027, with the exact local reading either side of the jump.

How the offset of Europe/Madrid has changed since 1970

Read on 1 January and 1 July of each year, which is the cheapest pair of samples that shows both the winter offset and whether the clocks moved that summer. The zone has passed through 2 distinct eras in that time and has used 2 different offsets: UTC+1, UTC+2. Its current behaviour has held since 1974. A rule change that began and ended between July and the following January is invisible to this sampling, so the table is a shape rather than a complete edit history.

The earliest summer shift this sampling sees here is 1974, and the zone has kept moving its clocks since. The dates the change falls on have moved several times even where the rule has not.

Countries and regions that use Europe/Madrid

One country uses Europe/Madrid: Spain, which keeps 3 zones in total and has a population of about 48,370,000.

Cities in the Europe/Madrid time zone

The 89 cities this site covers inside Europe/Madrid, each with a live clock and today's sunrise and sunset worked out from its own coordinate. They share an identifier, so they share a clock reading to the minute, and they do not share a sunrise: that is set by latitude and longitude.

The sun against the clock in Europe/Madrid

Worked out for Madrid, Spain, the city this site covers inside the zone, at 40.42 degrees north, 3.70 degrees west. The sun rises at 8:06 am and sets at 8:05 pm, giving 11 hours 59 minutes of daylight. Solar noon, the moment the sun is highest, falls at 2:06 pm, which is 126 minutes after clock noon.

That gap is the whole argument about where zone lines belong, in one number. It is made of three things: Madrid, Spain sitting 33.7 degrees west of the UTC+2 meridian, the equation of time, which today runs 8.7 minutes ahead of mean time, and the hour of daylight saving currently in force. Full sunrise and sunset times for Madrid.

Convert Europe/Madrid to another time zone

The converter is keyed on the abbreviations people type rather than on identifiers. Europe/Madrid is at UTC+2 right now, the same reading as CET, so these pages answer the same question for it today. They will diverge if the two zones ever adopt different daylight saving rules, which is exactly why the identifier is the thing worth storing.

Questions about Europe/Madrid

What time is it in Europe/Madrid right now?

2:08 pm on Saturday, September 26, 2026, as this page was served. The clock at the top of the page ticks on from there.

What is the UTC offset of Europe/Madrid?

UTC+2 at this instant, and it alternates between UTC+1 in winter and UTC+2 in summer.

Does Europe/Madrid observe daylight saving time?

Yes. The next change is October 25, 2026, when the clocks go back.

What is the abbreviation for Europe/Madrid?

CEST at this instant. The letters change with the season, because the standard and summer offsets have separate names.

Which countries use Europe/Madrid?

Spain.

Why store Europe/Madrid instead of UTC+2?

Because the offset is an output and the identifier is the input. This zone alone has two offsets in a year, and 49 other zones share its current reading while carrying different rules. A record storing UTC+2 cannot tell them apart; a record storing Europe/Madrid keeps working through every future rule change.

Other time zones in Europe

Where else to look