What Time Is Sunrise Today? Free Sunrise Calculator

What Time Is Sunrise Today?

If you want to know what time is sunrise today, this free sunrise calculator gives you the answer in seconds. It computes the exact minute the sun rises for any location on Earth, for today or any other date between 1900 and 2100. Along with the sunrise time, you also get the sunset time, solar noon, and the total day length for that date.

Morning people, commuters, runners, and landscape photographers all plan around the sunrise. Checking the time the night before means you can set one alarm instead of three, time your morning commute with the light, or arrive at your photo spot while the sky is still doing its best work.

How to Use the Sunrise Calculator

Getting your sunrise time takes three quick steps.

1. Enter your location. Choose one of the preset cities (New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Dubai, Karachi, Los Angeles, or Paris) or enter your own latitude and longitude along with your UTC offset. If you pick a preset, the coordinates and standard-time offset fill in automatically. If your area observes daylight saving time, adjust the UTC offset yourself for the current date.

2. Pick a date. The calendar selector accepts any date from 1900-01-01 to 2100-12-31. “Today” is not the only option: you can check next week’s sunrise, plan a trip months ahead, or look up the sunrise on the day you were born.

3. Read your results. The sunrise time appears front and center, with your location and the UTC offset used. Below it you will see the sunset time, solar noon, and the day length in hours and minutes for that date.

How Sunrise Times Are Computed

This tool uses the sunrise and sunset algorithm published by the NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory, the same method NOAA documents for its solar position calculations. The underlying equations come from Jean Meeus’ Astronomical Algorithms, a standard reference in observational astronomy.

Here is what the calculator actually does with your location and date, in plain language:

• It figures out the day of the year and calculates the sun’s mean anomaly, which describes where Earth is along its orbit.
• From that, it works out the sun’s true longitude and declination, essentially how high the sun’s path sits in the sky on that date.
• It then computes the local hour angle at a zenith of 90.833 degrees. That specific angle is the geometric definition of sunrise: the sun’s upper edge touching the horizon, with a correction folded in for average atmospheric refraction, the bending of sunlight that lets you see the sun slightly before it is geometrically above the horizon.
• Finally, it converts the result through UTC into your local time using the UTC offset you provided, and rounds everything to the nearest minute.

NOAA documents the method as theoretically accurate to within a minute for latitudes between 72 degrees north and 72 degrees south. When we tested this calculator against published almanac values from timeanddate.com, every result came within about a minute or two. Real-world conditions like haze and local terrain can shift the sunrise you actually see by a small amount, but for planning purposes the numbers are solid.

Near the poles, the calculator handles the edge cases honestly. If the sun never rises on the date you pick (polar night), it says so plainly instead of showing a broken or meaningless time. The same goes for polar day, when the sun never sets.

Worked Example: Sunrise in New York on June 21, 2026

Say you are in New York and you want to plan a summer-solstice morning. You select New York from the preset list, set the date to 2026-06-21, and adjust the UTC offset to UTC-4 for Eastern Daylight Time. The calculator returns:

• Sunrise: 5:25 AM
• Sunset: 8:30 PM
• Solar noon: 12:57 PM
• Day length: 15 hours, 5 minutes

June 21 is the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere, the day with the most daylight of the year. A 5:25 AM sunrise means a photographer chasing the dawn over the Hudson would want to be in position by about 5:00 AM, when the first light starts building. A runner who prefers daylight can start at 5:30 AM and finish a full hour-long run well after the sun is up.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does the sunrise time change every day?

Earth’s axis is tilted relative to its orbit, so the sun’s path across the sky rises and falls through the year. In the northern hemisphere, the sun climbs higher and rises earlier from December to June, then reverses. The calculator captures this automatically from the date you enter.

Is the sunrise time the same across my whole city?

Not exactly. Sunrise shifts by roughly one minute for every 15 miles you move east or west, and smaller amounts north or south. For most daily planning the difference is too small to matter, but if you need precision for a specific spot, enter custom coordinates instead of a city preset.

What is solar noon, and why does the tool show it?

Solar noon is the moment the sun reaches its highest point for the day, and it sits exactly halfway between sunrise and sunset. It is the anchor the calculator derives from, and photographers and sundial enthusiasts use it as a reference for when shadows are shortest.

Does the tool account for daylight saving time?

The preset cities fill in the standard-time UTC offset. If your location currently observes daylight saving time, add one hour to the offset yourself (for example, New York is UTC-5 in standard time and UTC-4 during daylight time). The tool states this clearly in its note line so you always know which offset was used.

Why is sunrise so early in June and so late in December?

That is the tilt of Earth’s axis doing its work. In June, the northern hemisphere leans toward the sun, so the sun’s daily arc is long and it clears the horizon early. In December the lean is away, the arc is short, and sunrise comes late. Southern hemisphere cities see the mirror image.

Related Tools

• What Time Does the Sun Set? – the companion calculator for planning your evenings, from golden hour to the end of daylight.
• Golden Hour Calculator – find the exact window of warm, low light after sunrise and before sunset, the favorite hour of photographers.
• Moon Phase on My Birthday – discover the phase of the moon on the date you were born, with the exact illumination percentage.
• Sidereal Natal Chart – your astrological birth chart computed with sidereal positions, for the astrology side of the sun and moon.