Current time in Alicante, Spain
The current local time in Alicante is shown below. Alicante observes CET in winter and CEST during daylight saving time.
What's the daylight saving status?
When are sunrise & sunset today?
What are the timezone facts?
What's the timezone history of Alicante?
Alicante keeps Central European Time alongside the rest of mainland Spain, despite sitting at near-zero longitude. The country's 1940 alignment with Berlin time persists. Wall time runs around 75 minutes ahead of mean solar noon during summer DST, producing sunset times past 21:30 in mid-June that fundamentally shape the southern Spanish summer economy. The EU DST schedule applies. Recent Spanish governments have periodically discussed returning to GMT without acting on the proposal.
What are the working hours in Alicante?
Tourism (particularly British and northern European retirees and seasonal residents along the Costa Blanca), services, and a substantial shoe and leather industry inland around Elche anchor the working economy. The traditional Spanish split working day persists in older businesses with offices running 09:00 to 14:00 and 17:00 to 20:00 broken by an extended lunch. Newer multinationals follow continuous 09:00 to 18:00 schedules. Las Hogueras de San Juan in late June, when wooden figures are burned across the city, closes most non-essential business for the week. August holidays are intensively taken.
Where is Alicante?
Alicante sits on Spain's Mediterranean coast in the autonomous community of Valencia, around 165 kilometres south of Valencia city and 415 kilometres south-east of Madrid. The city proper holds around 340,000 residents and the wider Costa Blanca metropolitan area roughly 470,000. The Santa Bárbara castle sits on Mount Benacantil (166 metres) immediately above the city centre, providing the dominant local landmark. The Postiguet beach extends north of the harbour, with the longer San Juan beach further north. The Alicante-Elche airport, around 10 kilometres south, is the busiest in the Valencia community.