You’re driving from Los Angeles to Phoenix in the middle of July. Your phone says one thing, your car clock says another, and suddenly you’re an hour late for a dinner reservation you thought you were early for. It’s a classic Southwest headache. People ask is there a time change in Arizona constantly because, frankly, the answer is a little weird compared to the rest of the country.
Most of the United States plays this biannual game of musical chairs with their alarm clocks. We spring forward, we fall back, and we all spend a week feeling like we have permanent jet lag. Arizona decided a long time ago that they weren't interested in that.
The Short Answer for Tired Travelers
No. Arizona does not observe Daylight Saving Time (DST).
Well, mostly.
If you are standing in downtown Phoenix, Scottsdale, or Tucson, your clock stays exactly where it is all year round. Arizona is on Mountain Standard Time (MST) 365 days a year. Because they don't shift, they effectively sync up with Pacific Daylight Time during the summer months. It’s why people get so confused. One month, Phoenix is the same time as Denver. A few months later, it’s the same time as Los Angeles.
The state is a giant, sun-drenched anchor in a sea of shifting time zones.
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The Navajo Nation Exception
Here is where it gets tricky. If you’re heading up toward the Four Corners or visiting the stunning landscapes of the Navajo Nation, the answer to is there a time change in Arizona flips to a "yes."
The Navajo Nation extends into Utah and New Mexico, states that do observe Daylight Saving Time. To keep their entire nation on a unified schedule, the Navajo Nation observes DST. This creates a "time island" effect.
But wait, there’s more.
The Hopi Reservation is entirely surrounded by the Navajo Nation. The Hopi, however, follow the rest of Arizona and do not observe DST. If you drive from Flagstaff to Window Rock and then through Hopi land in the summer, you could technically change your time three or four times in a single afternoon. It’s a logistical nightmare for scheduling tours or meeting locals. Honestly, if you're traveling through the northeast corner of the state in the summer, just keep a close eye on your GPS and maybe ask a local "What time is it for you right now?" before you commit to a meeting.
Why Arizona Ditched the Switch
It all comes down to the heat.
Back in 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act. Arizona actually tried it out for one year in 1967. It was a disaster.
Think about it. In a place like Phoenix, where summer temperatures regularly blast past 110 degrees, nobody wants more sunlight in the evening. If Arizona moved their clocks forward, the sun wouldn't set until nearly 9:00 PM. That’s an extra hour of the brutal desert sun beating down on houses, skyrocketing air conditioning costs, and keeping kids from playing outside until way past their bedtime.
State Representative Jack McElroy argued back then that it was a matter of public health and energy costs. If the sun stays out longer, the heat stays trapped in the pavement and the buildings longer. By staying on Standard Time, Arizonans get that sweet, sweet relief of sunset just a little bit earlier.
The Economic Ripple Effect
Living in a state that doesn't change time isn't just about avoiding a grumpy morning in March. It has real impacts on how business works.
When you’re a business owner in Phoenix and you have clients in New York, your window for calls shifts twice a year. In the winter, you’re two hours behind the East Coast. In the summer, you’re suddenly three hours behind. You have to constantly recalibrate your brain. "Wait, is it 9:00 AM there or 10:00 AM?"
Television is another weird one. Sports fans in Arizona have it the hardest. If a Monday Night Football game starts at 8:15 PM Eastern, it starts at 6:15 PM in Arizona during the winter. But in the early fall, before the clocks change elsewhere, that same game starts at 5:15 PM. You basically have to leave work early just to catch the kickoff.
Even the simple act of scheduling a Zoom call becomes a chore. Most modern calendar apps like Google Calendar or Outlook handle the conversion for you, but if you're manually typing an invite, you have to be incredibly specific. You can't just say "Mountain Time." You have to specify "Arizona Time" or "Mountain Standard."
Energy Myths and Reality
There’s a long-standing myth that Daylight Saving Time saves energy. That was the original pitch, anyway—saving candles, then saving electricity for lighting.
But in the modern era, especially in the Sun Belt, studies have shown it might actually do the opposite. A famous study in Indiana—which didn't observe DST in many counties until 2006—found that when they finally switched to DST, residential electricity bills actually went up. Why? Because people used more air conditioning during those extra evening hours of sun.
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Arizona was ahead of the curve on this logic. They realized that "saving" daylight in a desert is like bringing more sand to a beach. You don't need it, and it's actually kind of a nuisance.
How to Handle Your Electronics
Most smartphones are smart enough to know where you are. If you have "Set Automatically" toggled on in your settings, your phone will usually grab the local tower's time.
However, if you live near the border of the Navajo Nation or the California/Nevada line, your phone might get "confused" by pinging a tower in a different jurisdiction. I’ve seen phones jump back and forth an hour while sitting on a kitchen table in Kingman or Page.
The best fix? If you’re staying near those borders, manually set your time zone to "Phoenix" or "Arizona" instead of letting the network decide. It prevents your alarm from going off an hour early and ruining your vacation.
A Cultural Quirk
Arizonans are actually quite proud of their refusal to change clocks. It’s become a bit of a local identity marker. There’s a certain smugness that comes every March when the rest of the country is complaining on social media about losing an hour of sleep, while folks in Tempe are just waking up at their usual time, totally unaffected.
It’s one of those rare things that almost everyone in the state agrees on. Despite various attempts by politicians over the decades to "align" Arizona with the rest of the country for the sake of the golf industry or late-night TV ratings, the public pushback is always swift. People like their early sunsets in July.
Actionable Steps for Your Arizona Visit
If you're planning a trip or moving to the Grand Canyon State, don't let the time difference trip you up. Here is exactly how to manage it.
Check the Date: If your visit falls between the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November, Arizona will be at the same time as California and Las Vegas (Pacific Daylight Time). If your visit is between November and March, Arizona will be at the same time as Denver and Salt Lake City (Mountain Standard Time).
Confirm Your Tour Times: If you are visiting Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley, or the Canyon de Chelly, double-check which "time" the tour operator uses. Because these are often on or near the Navajo Nation, they might be an hour ahead of your hotel in Flagstaff or Page. Always ask, "Is this Arizona time or Navajo time?"
Manual Clock Settings: If you’re staying in a town like Page, Arizona, go into your phone settings. Navigate to Date & Time and turn off Set Automatically. Manually select Phoenix as your time zone. This stops your phone from jumping to Utah time if it catches a signal from across the border.
Business Logistics: If you work remotely for a company outside of Arizona, put a "Phoenix" clock on your desktop or world clock app. It saves you the mental math of trying to remember if the gap is two hours or three hours today.
Embrace the Early Morning: Since the sun rises early in Arizona during the summer (around 5:30 AM), plan your outdoor activities like hiking Camelback Mountain or visiting the Grand Canyon for the crack of dawn. By 10:00 AM, the heat is usually already intense, and you'll be glad you started when the "rest of the world" was still asleep.
The confusion over is there a time change in Arizona is really just a symptom of a state that values its own comfort over national conformity. Once you spend a summer there, you'll realize that "losing" that extra hour of evening sun is the greatest gift a local could ask for. Just keep your eyes on the Navajo Nation borders, set your phone to Phoenix, and enjoy the fact that you never have to worry about your microwave clock being wrong twice a year.