Current time in Madrid

Spain · UTC+1/UTC+2

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Europe/Madrid

UTC offset

UTC+1/UTC+2

Daylight Saving

Yes — observed

Time zone ID

Europe/Madrid

Business hours

9:00 AM – 6:00 PM CET (Monday–Friday, with 2-hour lunch break)

About Madrid's time zone

Madrid follows Central European Time (CET, UTC+1) in winter and CEST (UTC+2) in summer. This is geographically anomalous — Spain is naturally aligned with the UK and Portugal (UTC+0), but uses CET due to a 1940 decree by Francisco Franco aligning Spain with Nazi Germany. As a result, Spain has some of the latest meal times in Europe: lunch at 2-4 PM and dinner at 9-11 PM, which make more sense when you realize the clock is artificially 1-2 hours ahead of solar time.

Best time to call Madrid

Calling from	Recommended window
New York	9:00 AM – 6:00 PM ET (3:00 PM–midnight CET)
London	8:00 AM – 5:00 PM GMT
Buenos Aires	5:00 AM – 2:00 PM ART
Mexico City	2:00 PM – 11:00 PM CST

Did you know? Spain has two time zones — mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands use CET, while the Canary Islands (off the coast of Africa) use WET (UTC+0/UTC+1). The Canary Islands are geographically closer to Morocco than to mainland Spain and are in the same time zone as the UK, while the Spanish mainland is in the same zone as Germany.

Cities in the same time zone