Daylight Saving in Australia and Prayer Times
New South Wales switches between AEST and AEDT twice a year. Every prayer time on this site shifts with it automatically. Times are calculated against the real Australia/Sydney timezone rather than a fixed offset from UTC.
Last updated
NSW Government's own published dates
2026 transition dates
DST ends (AEDT → AEST)
DST starts (AEST → AEDT)
Clocks go back one hour at 3am on the April date and forward one hour at 2am on the October date.
What actually changes
The sun doesn't move because the clock changes. Solar noon, sunrise and sunset happen at the same real moments regardless of which timezone rule is in effect.
What daylight saving changes is which clock time those real moments are labelled with. That's why Maghrib appears to jump by an hour on the day clocks change, even though nothing about the sun itself has shifted.
Never a fixed offset
How this site handles it
The real Australia/Sydney timezone
Every calculation runs against it directly, with the correct AEST/AEDT transition rules already built in.
Never a fixed UTC offset
We never use a hardcoded offset, so the times cannot slip out of step when the clocks change.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does daylight saving end and start in NSW in 2026? +
Daylight saving ends on Sunday 5 April 2026, when clocks go back an hour to AEST. It starts again on Sunday 4 October 2026, when clocks go forward an hour to AEDT.
Does daylight saving change when the sun actually rises and sets? +
No. The sun rises and sets at the same real moments either way. Daylight saving only changes what the clock reads at those moments, so the prayer times shift by an hour on the clock but not in the sky.
Why do some prayer time apps get the week of a DST change wrong? +
A common bug is calculating times against a fixed UTC offset instead of a real timezone that knows the transition dates. That works most of the year. After the clocks change, though, the app keeps using the old offset and shows every time an hour off.