Why Your Meetings Shift by an Hour in October: The 2026 Daylight Saving Guide

Your Tuesday client call is always at 3 p.m. Then you open your calendar for late October and find it at 2 p.m. Nobody remembers moving it. Before you blame Google Calendar, Outlook, or your sync setup, check which country has changed its clocks.

The UK and the US end daylight saving time on different Sundays. In 2026, the gap falls between October 25 and November 1. For people working across those regions, the same recurring meeting can appear at a different local hour for one week even when every calendar is working correctly.

When do the clocks change in October and November 2026?

GOV.UK confirms October 25 as the UK's autumn clock change. At 2 a.m., clocks return to 1 a.m. and British Summer Time gives way to Greenwich Mean Time. Much of Europe also changes clocks that Sunday; timeanddate's country-by-country calendar lists regional dates.

In the United States, NIST lists November 1 at 2 a.m. local time as the end of daylight saving time in 2026. Most of Arizona and all of Hawaii do not observe DST. Other countries have different dates or no seasonal clock change at all, so use cities rather than assuming a whole continent follows one rule.

For London and New York, the practical result is simple: their usual five-hour difference becomes four hours during the gap, then returns to five once New York changes its clocks.

A recurring meeting example: 10 a.m. New York, but when in London?

Imagine a weekly Tuesday meeting created to stay at 10 a.m. in the America/New_York time zone. Its London display time changes like this:

This is an illustration of time-zone conversion, not a report of a sync failure. The meeting stays at the organizer's chosen New York hour. London has changed its clocks first, so the equivalent local time moves.

The reverse matters too. If the series is anchored to 3 p.m. Europe/London, it stays at 3 p.m. in London and appears at 11 a.m. in New York during the gap. You cannot preserve both cities' usual local times when the difference between them changes.

Normal time shift or actual calendar problem?

Compare the same occurrence, not just the series title. A 10 a.m. New York event and a 2 p.m. London event on October 27 represent the same instant. Comparing those labels without their time zones makes a correct calendar look broken.

• Probably expected: the meeting keeps its intended time in the series' home time zone, and the other city's display changes only around the clock-change dates.
• Needs investigation: the source and synchronized copy show different times when both are displayed in the same time zone, or one copy has not reflected an organizer's update.
• Check the individual occurrence: an organizer may have moved just one meeting. A series can contain exceptions that differ from its usual weekly pattern.

Google's time-zone guide explains that events are displayed in each person's local time zone. Seeing different clock times across cities is therefore normal. Seeing different instants for what should be the same event is the issue to investigate.

Your five-minute calendar checklist before October 25

1. Confirm the meeting's anchor time zone. Open the original event and check whether the recurring series follows New York, London, or another location. Use a named regional time zone rather than assuming a fixed UTC offset works all year.
2. Check three occurrences. Review one before October 25, one during October 26-30, and one after November 1. Read the actual local times instead of relying on last week's routine.
3. Compare Google, Outlook, and iCloud consistently. Check each app's display time zone, especially after travel. Compare copies in the same zone, or convert them to the same city before deciding that sync is wrong.
4. Review booking-page availability. Check the page's displayed time zone and which calendars it uses for availability. Preview a date in the mismatch week. Correct time-zone conversion and complete calendar coverage are separate checks.
5. Send a specific reminder. For example: "Our October 27 call is at 10 a.m. New York / 2 p.m. London. It returns to 3 p.m. London on November 3." Include the date and both cities rather than an ambiguous abbreviation.

If the gap moves a call outside someone's working hours, agree on an intentional change with the organizer. The goal is not to force every display back to its usual number; it is to make sure everyone agrees on the same meeting time.

Do not fix the gap by shifting your whole calendar

A blanket one-hour edit can turn a correct series into an incorrect one. Changing your calendar's display time zone just to make one meeting look familiar can also make other appointments confusing.

Check the source event first. If the organizer changes an occurrence, allow synchronization to catch up before editing copies in other calendars. Avoid deleting and recreating events as a first troubleshooting step, particularly when changes can propagate between calendars.

For broader troubleshooting beyond this seasonal gap, see our guide to time zones when syncing calendars. If a copy is missing or stale rather than simply displayed in a different zone, start with the Outlook and Google Calendar sync troubleshooting guide.

Where Calendar FreeSync helps, and where it does not

Calendar FreeSync synchronizes eligible events across connected Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, and iCloud calendars. That helps keep commitments visible in the calendars you use, rather than leaving a client call in Outlook while your Google calendar appears open.

Sync does not remove daylight saving time. It cannot infer the organizer's intended local hour or repair a source event created with the wrong time zone. Updates also take time to reach other calendars, and your selected sync window and filters determine which events are eligible. An occurrence beyond that window is not necessarily missing because something is broken.

Use the original event as your reference, verify the dates around both transitions, and check the sync's status if eligible copies disagree. If you are setting up a connection for the first time, our Google Calendar and Outlook setup guide walks through the process.

Daylight saving time and calendar FAQ

Clock-change dates checked against the linked sources on October 13, 2026. Regional rules can change; recheck the relevant location before scheduling.