How much daylight do you lose by moving north?

Published 2026-08-01 · last checked 2026-08-01 · written and calculated in-house by timedatelive

There is a rule of thumb worth carrying around: every ten degrees of latitude you move away from the equator costs you roughly an hour and a half of December daylight, and the cost accelerates the further you go.

Here is the ladder, city by city, so you can see what a specific move actually buys.

Short answer

Between the equator and about 25° of latitude you barely notice — the day shortens by under an hour. Between 40° and 55° you lose about three hours. Above 60° it falls off a cliff.

Moving from London to Larnaca — about 16 degrees south — is worth 1h 59m of extra December daylight per day.

City	Latitude	Dec daylight	Jun daylight	Lost vs June
Singapore (CBD)	1.3°	12h 03m	12h 12m	0h 09m
Bangkok	13.8°	11h 19m	12h 56m	1h 37m
Dubai	25.2°	10h 34m	13h 42m	3h 08m
Cairo	30.0°	10h 12m	14h 05m	3h 52m
Larnaca	34.9°	9h 48m	14h 30m	4h 42m
Athens	38.0°	9h 31m	14h 48m	5h 17m
Lisbon	38.7°	9h 27m	14h 53m	5h 25m
Rome	41.9°	9h 07m	15h 14m	6h 06m
Paris	48.9°	8h 15m	16h 11m	7h 56m
London	51.5°	7h 49m	16h 38m	8h 49m
Berlin	52.5°	7h 39m	16h 50m	9h 11m
Copenhagen	55.7°	7h 01m	17h 32m	10h 31m
Stockholm	59.3°	6h 05m	18h 37m	12h 33m
Helsinki	60.2°	5h 49m	18h 56m	13h 07m
Reykjavík	64.2°	4h 07m	21h 09m	17h 02m

Daylight at the two solstices, ordered by latitude.

The shape of the curve

Daylight length as a function of latitude is not a straight line. Near the equator the curve is almost flat: the first fifteen degrees cost you less than an hour on the shortest day. From about 35° it steepens, and past 60° it becomes nearly vertical — the last few degrees before the Arctic Circle take hours off the day rather than minutes.

This has a practical consequence for planning. If you are already in the tropics, moving further towards the equator gains you almost nothing in light and should be decided on other grounds. If you are in northern Europe, moving even a few hundred kilometres south is worth a surprising amount, and moving to the Mediterranean is transformative.

A worked example

Take a hypothetical December spent working from Stockholm. Daylight is 6h 05m, with the sun up at 08:43 and down at 14:48. A standard 09:00–17:00 day consumes essentially all of it. You will see daylight through a window and not otherwise.

The same month from Athens: 9h 31m, sun up at 07:37 and down at 17:09. The working day still eats most of it, but there is light before you start and something left at the end.

And from Bangkok: 11h 19m, 06:37 to 17:55. Barely different from its own June. Winter, as a concept affecting your daily light, does not occur.

Method. Latitudes are from our city coordinate set; daylight is computed for the December 2026 and June 2027 solstices with the standard refraction correction. Southern-hemisphere cities are excluded from this particular table because their seasons run the other way and would make the ladder unreadable — they are covered in the December daylight table.

Latitude is not the only lever

The other lever is longitude, and it is cheaper to pull. Moving west inside a time zone does not change how much daylight you get, but it moves all of it later on the clock, which for most working people is the part that matters. An hour of extra evening light is available without changing latitude at all — see where noon is not noon.

Combining both — going south and west within a zone — is why the Atlantic islands and the Moroccan coast keep coming out on top of these tables.

Common follow-up questions

How much daylight do you lose per degree of latitude?

It is not constant. Near the equator, almost nothing — under four minutes per degree on the shortest day. Around 50° north it is roughly ten minutes per degree, and above 60° it rises steeply until the sun stops rising at all past the Arctic Circle.

Does altitude affect daylight length?

Marginally. Being high up lets you see the sun slightly before it would clear a sea-level horizon and slightly after it sets, worth a few minutes at most. Our figures use the standard sea-level horizon.

Is the southern hemisphere the same in reverse?

Yes, precisely. A city at 40° south has the same December daylight as a city at 40° north has in June, and vice versa.

What is the cheapest way to get more winter daylight?

Moving west inside your existing time zone. It does not lengthen the day but it shifts all of it later on the clock, which is usually what people actually want.