Czechia 'falls back' an hour this weekend as summer time comes to an end

Czech summer time ("letní čas") ends on Sunday morning. At 3 a.m. clocks will turn back an hour to 2 a.m. providing us with an extra hour of sleep. Central European Standard Time will last until the last Sunday in March 2023.

What does tonight's time change mean for those living in Czechia?

Aside from an extra hour of sleep, anyone traveling long-distance via train or bus from Czechia on Sunday night will add an hour to their trip. 

The time change will affect four nighttime long-distance trains on the Czech Railways carrier. Trains will wait at the station for departure according to the new time. This affects trains to Germany, Austria, and Slovakia. See the full list of transport changes here.

Daylight saving time was first introduced in the Czech lands in 1915, and scrapped in 1916. It returned during World War II in 1940 and lasted until 1949. Czechs started moving their clocks forward for the third time during the energy crisis at the end of the 1970s.

Since 1996, the Czech Republic has synched up with the EU on the issue of summer time.

The European Union has been promising to end the clock-switching for years. But Brexit and the Covid pandemic put the issue on the back burner. 

Member states haven't yet agreed on which time will apply permanently. 

According to the European Commission's plan, the mandatory time change was supposed to end this year throughout the European Union. 

While economic savings were once used as an argument for changing time, the issue currently plays a negligible role, experts say. 

A 2021 Expats.cz poll found that 65 percent of readers would like to see summer time in Czechia adopted permanently.