After a long and dark winter, the days will get longer from this Sunday (29). The date marks the beginning of summer time in Europe, when clocks are advanced by one hour – at 1am they go directly to 2am. As a result, the difference in relation to most of Brazil, which had been three hours in recent months, becomes four hours.
The change takes place at 1am in mainland Portugal and Madeira Island. In the Autonomous Region of the Azores, the change occurs at midnight, with the clocks advancing to 1 am. The archipelago is one hour less than the mainland and Madeira.
The new timetable will be in force for the next six months, until the entry into winter timetable, scheduled for October 25, 2026. The regime follows a European directive in force since 2000, which establishes the time change on the last Sunday in March and the last Sunday in October.
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Despite the impact on routine – especially for those who have frequent contact with Brazil -, the arrival of summer time also brings one of the most anticipated effects of the year for those who live here. As spring advances and summer approaches, the days become progressively longer, with natural light until around 10pm in the months of July and August.
In Brazil, summer time has remained suspended since 2019, when the President of the Republic at the time, Jair Bolsonaro, decided to end the measure. The topic has already returned to debate at different times, but so far there has been no decision to resume it.
If the measure is adopted again, the time difference may temporarily decrease during the European winter. During these periods, the distance between the two countries can drop to two hours, which tends to make it easier to follow live events, such as Brazilian football matches (which sometimes take place around 2am in the European summer).
For now, the highlight is the change that arrives this weekend: if on the one hand we lost an hour of sleep in the early hours of this Sunday, on the other we will have much longer afternoons in the coming weeks.
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