On Sunday 29 March 2026, at 03:00, Bulgaria will switch to to daylight saving time. Clocks should be moved forward by one hour, meaning one hour less sleep. The change is linked to a decision of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union of 19 March 2001. Astronomical (standard) time will be restored on 25 October 2026.
Who invented daylight saving time?
Benjamin Franklin, the first US ambassador to France, jokingly proposed daylight saving time to mock what he saw as “lazy” French habits. In 1784 he wrote a satirical letter to the Journal de Paris suggesting that clocks be moved forward in summer so that people would get up earlier and benefit from more daylight. He also called for a tax on window shutters, rationing of candles and a wake‑up signal fired from artillery.
More than a century later, in 1895, the New Zealand astronomer and naturalist George Hudson proposed the same idea, this time for purely personal reasons: he wanted the extra daylight in summer to help him study insects.
In 1907, the British builder, keen golfer and horology enthusiast (a specialist in the measurement of time) William Willett also put the idea forward, after travelling early one summer morning and noticing how many blinds were down and windows shut while people slept through the beautiful dawn.
A year later, on 1 July 1908, after a petition from a local businessman, John Hewitson, the residents of Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada, were granted permission to move their clocks forward by one hour so they could enjoy longer, lighter evenings. Other Canadian cities soon followed.
Darker motives, however, lay behind Germany’s decision to adopt summer time on 30 April 1916. Extending daylight hours in summer allowed the war machine to operate more efficiently. It also reduced the amount of fuel used for domestic lighting, increasing supplies available to the army.
The following month, Britain followed suit. In fact, Parliament had been debating the idea since 1909, although the proposals were strongly opposed by farmers, who preferred lighter summer mornings to carry out their work, rather than longer, brighter evenings. In the end, in 1925, summer time was made permanent in the United Kingdom, in recognition of the fact that people’s waking hours do not coincide with the seasonal variation in daylight.
How long will this continue?
In 2018, the European Union launched an initiative to decide whether to continue changing the clocks or adopt a single, permanent time. Most member states indicated that they favoured ending the twice‑yearly change because of its negative effects on the human body. Discussions were, however, suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In order to stop changing the clocks, EU countries need to coordinate their choice and reach a consensus on which time to adopt permanently. A number of countries around the world have already abandoned seasonal clock changes, among them Turkey, Russia and Peru.
The principal concern is that the body’s internal clock needs time to adapt and this adjustment can sometimes take one or two weeks. During this period, many people experience fatigue, headaches, poor concentration, lethargy and other unpleasant effects.
Daylight saving time will remain in force this year until 24 October and in the night of 24–25 October 2026 Bulgaria will revert to astronomical time, when clocks are put back by one hour.
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