Sunrise & sunset times in Edinburgh

Sun and moon in Edinburgh

Stargazers, dog walkers and commuters rely on the daily sun and moon schedule for Edinburgh, United Kingdom. This page shows live sunrise, sunset, solar noon, day length, morning and evening golden hour, blue hour, dawn and dusk, plus the current moon phase and the moonrise and moonset times for Edinburgh. Every value is calculated in the browser for the date you pick and shown in the local time of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. Edinburgh sits at roughly 55.95 degrees north, in the northern hemisphere, so it sees a wide seasonal swing between long summer days and short winter afternoons, so sunrise and sunset move dramatically across the year. Because the length of the day changes with the seasons, the exact sunrise and sunset in Edinburgh shift from week to week. Pick any date with the date picker to see how the light will fall on a specific day, which is handy for planning a shoot, an event, a wedding, a flight or simply the best moment to catch the last warm light of the evening. Golden hour, that soft warm window near sunrise and sunset, is the favourite of photographers in Edinburgh. Blue hour, the cooler stretch just before sunrise and just after sunset, is ideal for cityscapes and long exposures. Combined with the moon phase and moon times, this gives you a complete picture of natural light over Edinburgh, United Kingdom for any day of the year.

What time is sunset in Edinburgh today?

The sun sets in Edinburgh at 18:45 today, Friday, 2 October 2026, in Edinburgh's own local time. The warm light starts well before that: evening golden hour opens at 17:55, giving 50 minutes of low golden light before the sun reaches the horizon. Sunset is not the end of the light either. Last light, the moment usable daylight ends at civil dusk, follows 37 minutes later at 19:22, and the sky is properly dark at 20:50, 2h 5m after sunset.

Tomorrow the sun sets at 18:42 in Edinburgh. That is 2 minutes 37 seconds earlier than today. Over the coming week sunset moves 18 minutes 7 seconds earlier.

Planning around the light? See golden hour in Edinburgh.

Is the day getting longer or shorter in Edinburgh right now?

Edinburgh gets 11h 28m of daylight today, from sunrise to sunset. Tomorrow will be 4 minutes 36 seconds shorter. Over the next seven days Edinburgh loses 32 minutes 9 seconds of daylight.

That pace is not constant. In Edinburgh the day length changes fastest around March, near the equinox, when it moves by about 4 minutes 41 seconds per day, and it slows almost to a stop at the solstices in June and December. The word solstice means exactly that: the sun standing still.

When are the earliest and latest sunrise and sunset in Edinburgh?

The earliest sunset of 2026 in Edinburgh falls on 14 December at 15:37, 7 days before the December solstice, and the latest on 24 June at 22:03.

Sunrise runs on its own schedule: earliest on 18 June at 04:25, latest on 28 December at 08:44, 7 days after the December solstice. The four dates in the table below do not line up with the solstices, and they are not supposed to. Earth's orbit is slightly elliptical and its axis is tilted, so the sun runs a few minutes fast or slow against clock time through the year. That offset, the equation of time, is what pushes the earliest sunset ahead of the shortest day and the latest sunrise behind it.

These are wall-clock times, so Edinburgh's daylight saving change is part of the picture: an hour moved by the clocks counts the same as an hour moved by the Earth.

For the longest and shortest day themselves, see day length in Edinburgh.

How long does twilight last in Edinburgh?

First light in Edinburgh arrives 37 minutes before sunrise today, at 06:40. After sunset the light hangs on for another 37 minutes, until 19:22. That evening stretch is not the same all year in Edinburgh: it runs from 37 minutes at its shortest, in September, to 1h 2m at its longest, in June. The lower the angle at which the sun crosses the horizon, the longer twilight lasts, which is why dusk is a slow affair at high latitudes and abrupt near the equator.

For 96 nights of 2026, the longest stretch running from 4 May to 7 August, the sky over Edinburgh never gets fully dark. The sun stays within 18 degrees of the horizon all night, so astronomical twilight lasts straight through to dawn and the faintest stars never come out. On 41 of those nights it does not even reach 12 degrees below the horizon, so the sky holds a pale blue right through the small hours.

Full three-band twilight tables: dawn in Edinburgh and dusk in Edinburgh.

How high does the sun get in Edinburgh?

At midday on the June solstice the sun stands 57.5 degrees above the horizon in Edinburgh. On the December solstice it climbs only 10.7 degrees. A midday sun that low throws a shadow about 5.3 times the height of whatever casts it, so even at noon in midwinter the shadows in Edinburgh are long ones.

Frequently asked questions about Edinburgh

Data and methodology: every time on this page is computed from Edinburgh's coordinates with SunCalc, an open source astronomy library, not estimated or looked up from a table. Coordinates 55.95, -3.19, time zone Europe/London. Accurate to about a minute for a flat, unobstructed horizon; terrain, tall buildings and atmospheric conditions can shift the moment the sun is actually visible by a few minutes. Full method on methodology.

Nearby cities

Sun and moon times for places close to Edinburgh. Sunrise and sunset shift as you move east, west, north or south.

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Understand the light

Plain-English guides to the moments that shape the day in Edinburgh and everywhere else.

Keep Edinburgh in your calendar

Subscribe to a live feed of Edinburgh's sunrise and sunset in your own calendar app, so today's light is always a glance away. It updates by itself, with no account.