Many people, when faced with the prospect of going to Portugal in March or October, ask us if there is a time change in Portugal. We decided to dedicate this tiny post to answering precisely this question. So, do you have to readjust your watches and clocks in Portugal?
Well, maybe. Portugal has two time zones: one for the main land of Portugal, which is actually the same as in the UK, and the other one for Azores, where the UK is an hour ahead. The continental main land (and Madeira) uses UTC +00:00, also known as GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) or the Western European Time, where Azores uses UTC -01:00. If your destination excludes Azores, there is no need for you to change time on your devices. If you are heading there, turn your watches back one hour.
There is also the question regarding the presence of summer time in Portugal, which we can swiftly answer affirmatively. In Portugal, just like in the entirety of Western Europe (apart from Iceland), daylight savings time does still function, so the time changes there on the last Sunday of March and ends on the last Sunday of October.
Interestingly enough, Portugal actually used to use the Central European UTC (UTC +01:00), but it changed its ways in 1996.
