Time in Spain

Spain has two time zones. Spain mainly uses CET (UTC+01:00) in Peninsular Spain, Balearic Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla. In the Canary Islands, the time zone is WET (UTC±00:00). In both territories, Daylight saving time is observed during summer months, meaning that mainland Spain uses CEST (UTC+02:00), whilst the Canary Islands uses WEST (UTC+01:00) between March and October.

Spain used GMT (UTC±00:00) before the Second World War (except for the Canary Islands which used UTC−01:00 before this date). However, the time zone was changed to Central European Time in 1940 and has remained so since then, meaning that no parts of Spain use the "natural" time zone which Spain's geographic position under the coordinated time zone system would indicate. For example in A Coruña in the northwest of Spain, in the solstices, it experiences in summer sunrise at 6:53 am and sunset at 10:19 pm while it should respectively be 5:53 am and 9:19 pm, and in winter it experiences sunrise at 9:03 am and sunset at 6:01 pm while it should respectively be 8:03 am and 5:01 pm. This can negatively affect people's sleep schedules, meals and daily activities due to the unnatural timezone.^[1]