Sunrise & sunset times in Sacramento

Sun and moon in Sacramento

Stargazers, dog walkers and commuters rely on the daily sun and moon schedule for Sacramento, United States. 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 Sacramento. Every value is calculated in the browser for the date you pick and shown in the local time of Sacramento, United States. Sacramento sits at roughly 38.58 degrees north, in the northern hemisphere, so it sees a clear but moderate seasonal swing, with noticeably longer days in summer and cosier, earlier sunsets in winter. Because the length of the day changes with the seasons, the exact sunrise and sunset in Sacramento 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 Sacramento. 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 Sacramento, United States for any day of the year.

What time is sunset in Sacramento today?

The sun sets in Sacramento at 18:46 (just after midnight) today, Thursday, 1 October 2026, in Sacramento's own local time. The warm light starts well before that: evening golden hour opens at 18:11, giving 35 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 26 minutes later at 19:13, and the sky is properly dark at 20:14, 1h 28m after sunset.

Tomorrow the sun sets at 18:46 in Sacramento. That is 1 minute 33 seconds earlier than today. Over the coming week sunset moves 10 minutes 43 seconds earlier.

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

Sacramento gets 11h 46m of daylight today, from sunrise to sunset. Tomorrow will be 2 minutes 28 seconds shorter. Over the next seven days Sacramento loses 17 minutes 15 seconds of daylight.

That pace is not constant. In Sacramento the day length changes fastest around March, near the equinox, when it moves by about 2 minutes 31 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 Sacramento?

The earliest sunset of 2026 in Sacramento falls on 6 December at 16:44, 15 days before the December solstice, and the latest on 27 June at 20:34.

Sunrise runs on its own schedule: earliest on 13 June at 05:41, latest on 31 October at 07:31, the last morning before the clocks go back. One of these dates is pinned by the clocks rather than by the sky: a daylight saving change in Sacramento moves sunrise and sunset by a whole hour overnight, so the earliest and latest times on the clock land on either side of it. The rest is astronomy. 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 Sacramento'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.

How long does twilight last in Sacramento?

First light in Sacramento arrives 26 minutes before sunrise today, at 06:36. After sunset the light hangs on for another 26 minutes, until 19:13. That evening stretch is not the same all year in Sacramento: it runs from 26 minutes at its shortest, in September, to 32 minutes 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.

How high does the sun get in Sacramento?

At midday on the June solstice the sun stands 74.9 degrees above the horizon in Sacramento. On the December solstice it climbs only 28.0 degrees. A midday sun that low throws a shadow about 1.9 times the height of whatever casts it, so even at noon in midwinter the shadows in Sacramento are long ones.

Frequently asked questions about Sacramento

Data and methodology: every time on this page is computed from Sacramento's coordinates with SunCalc, an open source astronomy library, not estimated or looked up from a table. Coordinates 38.58, -121.49, time zone America/Los_Angeles. 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 Sacramento. Sunrise and sunset shift as you move east, west, north or south.

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