Working European Hours in Istanbul? Your Evening Plans Change on 25 October

That seven o’clock dinner you can just make after work may soon clash with your last meeting.

On Sunday, 25 October, clocks go back in the UK and across the EU. Turkey stays on UTC+3 throughout the year. If you work from Istanbul and follow your European team’s local office hours, your working day will shift an hour later here. UK clock-change dates, European arrangements, Turkey’s year-round time policy.

For a Monday-to-Friday worker, the difference arrives on Monday, 26 October. If your team works 09:00–17:00 in:

• London: your Istanbul hours move from 11:00–19:00 to 12:00–20:00
• Berlin: your Istanbul hours move from 10:00–18:00 to 11:00–19:00
• New York (from Monday, 2 November): your Istanbul hours move from 16:00–00:00 to 17:00–01:00

These conversions assume you follow your team’s local working hours. If your schedule is fixed to Istanbul time, your hours stay the same. New York changes a week later than Europe, so more on that below.

A London-based job could now finish at eight in Istanbul. Add the journey to a dinner or language night, and an evening that used to feel manageable gets squeezed. For Berlin-based workers, the hour previously available between closing the laptop and going out becomes part of the working day.

There is a useful trade-off: your morning opens up.

A coffee with someone nearby, a walk or a workout can happen before your first meeting. If you have been saving every social plan for after work, late October is a good moment to try a different routine. Breakfast counts as seeing your friends.

Before the change, open your calendar for the week beginning 26 October. Check your last recurring meeting against anything you have already booked. If you coordinate across countries, include the city or time zone when agreeing on a time—“seven” becomes surprisingly unhelpful.

If you coordinate both sides of the Atlantic, note the odd week in between: from 25 October to 1 November, London and New York are four hours apart instead of the usual five.

Your calendar may already have handled the change. In Google Calendar, recurring meetings set to London or Berlin time should appear at the correct Istanbul time automatically when you view them with your calendar set to Istanbul. Check the meeting scheduled for 26 October before manually moving anything, and confirm with the organizer if it looks wrong. Google Calendar’s time-zone guidance.

Working with New York? Your change comes a week later. US daylight saving time ends on Sunday, 1 November in places that observe it. For Monday-to-Friday workers following New York office hours, the first affected workday is Monday, 2 November. A New York 09:00–17:00 schedule then ends at 01:00 the following day in Istanbul, an hour later than the midnight finish it has until then. NIST’s 2026 dates.

For that schedule, weekday mornings and weekends deserve a place in your social calendar before work fills everything around them.

Take a look at upcoming Smileys events and choose something that fits your actual finishing time. Smileys events are always listed in Istanbul time, so they won’t shift on 25 October. Your workday will. Give yourself enough room to close the laptop, get there and enjoy being out.

And tell your friends about the new hours before you become the person who is always “just finishing one last call.”