2027 schedule
| Change | Date | Local time | What happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clocks go back | Sunday, April 4, 2027 | 3:00 AM | Returns to 2:00 AM — one hour is gained |
| Clocks go forward | Sunday, October 3, 2027 | 2:00 AM | Jumps to 3:00 AM — one hour is lost |
Time until the next change
Current local time:
Technology and Time Changes in 2027
Phones, computers and anything else that syncs with an internet time server handle the transition on their own. What still catches people out in Australia is the long tail of devices that don't: car dashboards, ovens and microwaves, wall clocks, older thermostats, and cheap alarm clocks with a DST setting hard-coded to a schedule that has since changed.
For anyone running servers, the transitions are a recurring source of bugs — duplicated or missing local timestamps around the changeover, cron jobs that fire twice or not at all, and stale operating system timezone databases. Storing timestamps in UTC and keeping the tzdata package current avoids almost all of it.
Agricultural Considerations
The story that DST was introduced for farmers has it exactly backwards. Farmers in Australia and elsewhere were among its most persistent opponents, and the American farm lobby successfully campaigned to have national DST repealed after the First World War.
The reason is straightforward: farm work follows the sun, not the clock. Moving the clock forward just means doing the same work an hour earlier by the clock, while deliveries, markets and hired labour all shift with it. Dairy farmers make the point most often, since cows keep to their own schedule and take several days to adjust to a changed milking time.
Getting ready
- Update your car clock, microwave, and other manual clocks that don't auto-update.
- Remember that not all countries change on the same date - check international meeting times carefully.
- Be extra cautious driving the Monday after the spring time change - accident rates increase.
- Take advantage of the 'extra' hour in fall to catch up on sleep or tackle a project.
Frequently asked questions
When do the clocks change in Australia in 2027?
Clocks go forward on Sunday, October 3, 2027 and back on Sunday, April 4, 2027.
Which way do the clocks go?
"Spring forward, fall back" is the usual mnemonic: forward one hour in spring, back one hour in autumn.
Do I have to change anything myself?
Phones, computers and anything that syncs over the internet update on their own. Car clocks, ovens, microwaves and older wall clocks generally do not.
Is Daylight Saving Time being scrapped?
It has been proposed in many places and adopted in few. The European Parliament voted in 2019 to end mandatory clock changes and the change has stalled; in the United States the Sunshine Protection Act has repeatedly passed the Senate without becoming law. Most of the world that changes its clocks is still changing them.