Sunrise & sunset times in Washington

Sun and moon in Washington

Stargazers, dog walkers and commuters rely on the daily sun and moon schedule for Washington, 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 Washington. Every value is calculated in the browser for the date you pick and shown in the local time of Washington, United States. Washington sits at roughly 38.91 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 Washington 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 Washington. 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 Washington, United States for any day of the year.

What time is sunset in Washington today?

The sun sets in Washington at 18:49 (just after midnight) today, Thursday, 1 October 2026, in Washington's own local time. The warm light starts well before that: evening golden hour opens at 18:13, 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 27 minutes later at 19:15, and the sky is properly dark at 20:17, 1h 28m after sunset.

Tomorrow the sun sets at 18:49 in Washington. That is 1 minute 34 seconds earlier than today. Over the coming week sunset moves 10 minutes 50 seconds earlier.

Planning around the light? See golden hour in Washington.

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

Washington gets 11h 47m of daylight today, from sunrise to sunset. Tomorrow will be 2 minutes 30 seconds shorter. Over the next seven days Washington loses 17 minutes 28 seconds of daylight.

That pace is not constant. In Washington the day length changes fastest around March, near the equinox, when it moves by about 2 minutes 33 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 Washington?

The earliest sunset of 2026 in Washington falls on 7 December at 16:45, 14 days before the December solstice, and the latest on 27 June at 20:37.

Sunrise runs on its own schedule: earliest on 13 June at 05:42, latest on 31 October at 07:34, 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 Washington 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 Washington'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 Washington.

How long does twilight last in Washington?

First light in Washington arrives 27 minutes before sunrise today, at 06:38. After sunset the light hangs on for another 27 minutes, until 19:15. That evening stretch is not the same all year in Washington: it runs from 27 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.

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

How high does the sun get in Washington?

At midday on the June solstice the sun stands 74.5 degrees above the horizon in Washington. On the December solstice it climbs only 27.7 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 Washington are long ones.

Frequently asked questions about Washington

Data and methodology: every time on this page is computed from Washington's coordinates with SunCalc, an open source astronomy library, not estimated or looked up from a table. Coordinates 38.91, -77.04, time zone America/New_York. 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 Washington. 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 Washington and everywhere else.

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