Sunrise & sunset times in Rio de Janeiro

Sun and moon in Rio de Janeiro

For photographers, gardeners, runners and anyone chasing good light, the daily sun and moon schedule for Rio de Janeiro is easy to check here. 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 Rio de Janeiro. Every value is calculated in the browser for the date you pick and shown in the local time of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rio de Janeiro sits at roughly 22.91 degrees south, in the southern hemisphere, so it sees very little seasonal change, with day length staying close to twelve hours all year and a short, fast twilight after sunset. Because the length of the day changes with the seasons, the exact sunrise and sunset in Rio de Janeiro 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 Rio de Janeiro. 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 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for any day of the year.

What time is sunset in Rio de Janeiro today?

The sun sets in Rio de Janeiro at 17:52 (just after midnight) today, Thursday, 1 October 2026, in Rio de Janeiro's own local time. The warm light starts well before that: evening golden hour opens at 17:22, giving 30 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 23 minutes later at 18:14, and the sky is properly dark at 19:07, 1h 15m after sunset.

Tomorrow the sun sets at 17:52 in Rio de Janeiro. To the minute, that is the same time as today. Over the coming week sunset moves 2 minutes 30 seconds later.

Planning around the light? See golden hour in Rio de Janeiro.

Is the day getting longer or shorter in Rio de Janeiro right now?

Rio de Janeiro gets 12h 18m of daylight today, from sunrise to sunset. Tomorrow will be 1 minute 19 seconds longer. Over the next seven days Rio de Janeiro gains 9 minutes 13 seconds of daylight.

That pace is not constant. In Rio de Janeiro the day length changes fastest around March, near the equinox, when it moves by about 1 minute 20 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 Rio de Janeiro?

The earliest sunset of 2026 in Rio de Janeiro falls on 6 June at 17:14, 15 days before the June solstice, and the latest on 13 January at 18:43.

Sunrise runs on its own schedule: earliest on 28 November at 04:58, latest on 4 July at 06:34, 13 days after the June 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.

For the longest and shortest day themselves, see day length in Rio de Janeiro.

How long does twilight last in Rio de Janeiro?

First light in Rio de Janeiro arrives 23 minutes before sunrise today, at 05:09. After sunset the light hangs on for another 23 minutes, until 18:14. That evening stretch is not the same all year in Rio de Janeiro: it runs from 22 minutes at its shortest, in March, to 25 minutes at its longest, in December. 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.

Full three-band twilight tables: dawn in Rio de Janeiro and dusk in Rio de Janeiro.

How high does the sun get in Rio de Janeiro?

At midday on the December solstice the sun stands 89.5 degrees above the horizon in Rio de Janeiro. On the June solstice it climbs only 43.7 degrees. Even at that lowest point, a noon shadow in Rio de Janeiro is only about 1.0 times the height of the object casting it.

Twice a year, on 10 December and 31 December, the midday sun over Rio de Janeiro comes within half a degree of straight overhead, reaching 89.96 degrees at its highest. On those days an upright post casts almost no shadow at solar noon, which is why they are sometimes called zero shadow days. It can only happen between the tropics, where the sun passes directly over a place at all.

Frequently asked questions about Rio de Janeiro

Data and methodology: every time on this page is computed from Rio de Janeiro's coordinates with SunCalc, an open source astronomy library, not estimated or looked up from a table. Coordinates -22.91, -43.17, time zone America/Sao_Paulo. 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.

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

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Plain-English guides to the moments that shape the day in Rio de Janeiro and everywhere else.

Keep Rio de Janeiro in your calendar

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