Daylight Saving Time Ends Sunday in Florida as Push to Lock the Clock Stalls in the U.S. Senate

Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, when clocks across Florida fall back one hour to 1 a.m. The change gives Floridians an extra hour of sleep but brings darker evenings, with sunset in Miami arriving around 5:35 p.m. by the winter solstice. Standard time will last until March 14, 2027, when clocks spring forward again.

The ritual continues even though Florida lawmakers voted eight years ago to keep the state on daylight saving time all year. That law cannot take effect without action from Congress, and while the U.S. House passed a bill to make daylight saving time permanent nationwide in July, the measure remains stalled in the Senate despite public pressure from President Donald Trump.

Florida's 2018 law is still waiting on Congress

In March 2018, then-Gov. Rick Scott signed House Bill 1013, Florida's Sunshine Protection Act, which declared the state's intent to observe daylight saving time year-round. The law was set to take effect July 1, 2018, but it came with a catch: federal law allows states to opt out of daylight saving time and stay on standard time permanently, as Hawaii and most of Arizona do, but it does not allow states to adopt permanent daylight saving time. Congress gets the final say.

Florida's law helped spark a national movement. Then-U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio introduced a federal Sunshine Protection Act in March 2018, modeled on the Florida bill, and U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., filed the House version two days later. About 19 states have since enacted similar laws that would take effect only if Congress allows it, according to the Congressional Research Service.

A long run in Congress

The federal bill has been reintroduced in every Congress since 2018. It came closest in March 2022, when the Senate passed it by unanimous consent. Several senators later said they had not known the request was coming, and the House never took a vote, so the bill died when that Congress ended.

In the current Congress, Buchanan reintroduced the House bill, H.R. 139, on Jan. 3, 2025. Scott, now a U.S. senator, introduced the Senate version, S. 29, on Jan. 7, 2025, with bipartisan cosponsors. Scott has been one of the bill's most visible champions since joining the Senate and was a cosponsor of the 2022 version that cleared the chamber.

On July 14, 2026, the House passed the Sunshine Protection Act 308-117, after the Energy and Commerce Committee folded it into a broader motor vehicle bill that cleared committee 48-1. Two Florida Republicans played lead roles. Buchanan said in a committee release that "it's time to lock the clock and make daylight saving time permanent." Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., who chairs the subcommittee that handled the bill, said, "Americans are ready to ditch the switch."

Why it is stuck in the Senate

The bill now sits with the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and has not received a floor vote. Its chief obstacle is Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who objected in October 2025 when supporters tried to pass the Senate version by unanimous consent. Cotton has argued that permanent daylight saving time would force children to go to school in the dark on winter mornings, and he has pointed out that Congress tried year-round daylight saving time in 1974 and repealed it after it proved unpopular. Other Republican senators have also raised objections.

Trump has backed the bill and has repeatedly urged Senate Republicans to pass it. On Oct. 3, he escalated the fight by posting on Truth Social what appeared to be Cotton's personal cellphone number and urging people to call him, according to CNN and other outlets. As of Tuesday, there was no sign the Senate would act before clocks change on Sunday. With Congress focused on the Nov. 3 midterm elections, the earliest realistic window for a Senate vote is the lame-duck session that follows.

What permanent daylight saving time would mean for Florida mornings

Supporters in Florida often point to tourism, outdoor recreation and longer evenings at the beach. Critics focus on winter mornings, especially in the western part of the Eastern time zone, where the sun already rises late.

Florida spans two time zones. Most of the state is on Eastern time, while the Panhandle roughly west of the Apalachicola River, including Pensacola and Panama City, is on Central time. Because Tallahassee sits near the western edge of the Eastern zone, its sunrise comes later than Miami's. The table below shows approximate sunrise and sunset times on the winter solstice, Dec. 21, under current standard time and under permanent daylight saving time, calculated by The Florida Press using NOAA's standard solar formula.

Under year-round daylight saving time, students in Tallahassee, Jacksonville and Tampa would wait for school buses in darkness for much of December and January, with sunrise after 8 a.m. In exchange, Floridians would get usable daylight after work until roughly 6:30 to 7 p.m. through the winter.

What the clock change does to your body

Even the fall change, which adds an hour, can disrupt sleep because work and school schedules do not move with the clock. The body's circadian rhythm, the roughly 24-hour internal cycle that governs when people feel alert or sleepy, also affects heart rate, blood pressure, stress hormones and metabolism, according to reporting by the Associated Press published by FOX 13 Tampa Bay.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the American Medical Association consider aligning with standard time to be best for health, because brighter mornings and less evening light help keep the circadian rhythm on track. That puts the leading sleep and medical groups at odds with the Sunshine Protection Act: they favor permanent standard time, not permanent daylight saving time.

Darker evenings can also be hard on people with seasonal affective disorder, a form of depression linked to shorter days. Sleep experts suggest shifting bedtime by about 15 minutes a night in the days around the change and getting sunlight early in the morning, or sitting near a window if going outside is not possible.

What's next

Floridians should set manual clocks, including those in cars and on older appliances, back one hour before bed Saturday night. Phones and most connected devices will update automatically.

In Washington, supporters hope the Senate will take up the House-passed bill after the election. If Congress approves it and Trump signs it, Florida's 2018 law would allow the state to remain on daylight saving time year-round. If not, the next clock change comes at 2 a.m. on March 14, 2027, and the debate will begin again.