Current Time in Bucharest

💡 How Romania changes its clocks: Clocks spring forward on the last Sunday in March at 03:00 local EET (becoming 04:00 EEST), and fall back on the last Sunday in October at 04:00 local EEST (becoming 03:00 EET), in line with all EU member states. Because the UK changes clocks on exactly the same dates, Bucharest is always exactly 2 hours ahead of London, every single day of the year. Bucharest is also always exactly 1 hour ahead of Berlin, Vienna, Prague and Budapest since they all switch on the same schedule. For most of the year Bucharest is … ahead of New York, with a brief transition window each spring when the US changes clocks roughly 3 weeks before Europe.

• 20 Sept 1459 The earliest surviving written reference to Bucharest appears in a document issued by Vlad III — Vlad the Impaler — granting trade privileges from “the citadel of Bucharest” (cetatea Bucureștilor). The city’s name is believed to derive from the personal name Bucur, a legendary shepherd credited with founding a settlement on the banks of the Dâmbovița. A small court (Curtea Veche) and a network of merchants and craftsmen had already made the site a thriving crossing point on the southern Wallachian plain.
• 1659 Bucharest becomes the permanent capital of the Principality of Wallachia, replacing Târgoviște. Its central location on the plain, relative distance from Ottoman-controlled Danubian fortresses and growing commercial importance had made it the de facto political heart for decades. Over the following century, successive princes build churches, palaces and caravanserais around the old court, and the city absorbs strong Ottoman, Greek and Levantine cultural influences during the Phanariot era (1716–1821).
• 1848 The Wallachian Revolution of 1848 erupts in Bucharest, part of the broader European Spring of Nations. Romanian intellectuals demand a modern constitution, abolition of serfdom and national sovereignty. The revolt is swiftly suppressed by Ottoman and Russian intervention, but the movement plants the seeds of Romanian national consciousness. Within a decade its leaders — many educated in Paris — return to drive the country toward unification.
• 1862 & 1881 Following the union of Wallachia and Moldavia under Alexandru Ioan Cuza in 1859, Bucharest becomes the capital of the United Romanian Principalities in 1862. In 1881 it is proclaimed capital of the Kingdom of Romania under Carol I of Hohenzollern. The ensuing Belle Époque decades transform the city: Haussmann-inspired boulevards, the Romanian Athenaeum (1888), grand ministry buildings, and a vibrant literary and café culture earn Bucharest the enduring nickname “Little Paris of the East.”
• 1916 – 1918 Romania enters World War I on the Entente side in August 1916. After early military reverses, German forces occupy Bucharest from December 1916 to November 1918, systematically looting grain, oil and resources. Despite this, Romania emerges on the winning side: the post-war settlements bring Greater Romania into being, nearly doubling national territory through the addition of Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina, and making Bucharest the capital of a significantly enlarged state.
• 10 Nov 1940 A catastrophic year for Romania: territorial losses to the USSR (Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, June), to Hungary (Northern Transylvania, August via the Second Vienna Award) and to Bulgaria (Southern Dobruja) precede a devastating earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale on 10 November 1940. More than 1,000 people are killed across Romania and hundreds of Bucharest buildings — many of them the grand Belle Époque structures of the 1880s–1910s — are severely damaged or destroyed.
• 23 Aug 1944 King Mihai I orchestrates a palace coup that removes dictator Ion Antonescu and switches Romania to the Allied side, shortening the war in South-East Europe by weeks. Soviet forces enter Bucharest days later. By December 1947, Communist pressure forces King Mihai’s abdication; the Romanian People’s Republic is proclaimed, beginning over four decades of Communist rule — the last and most repressive phase of which will reshape Bucharest’s physical landscape beyond recognition.
• 4 Mar 1977 A magnitude 7.2 earthquake strikes Romania on 4 March 1977 at 21:22 local time. In Bucharest alone, 33 multi-storey buildings collapse, killing 1,578 people and leaving 35,000 homeless. Nicolae Ceaușescu uses the reconstruction effort to accelerate his “systematization” programme — demolishing entire historic quarters, Orthodox churches, synagogues and aristocratic mansions to build the vast Civic Centre and the gargantuan Palace of the People through the 1980s.
• Dec 1989 The Romanian Revolution of December 1989 — the only violent overthrow among the Eastern European democratic transitions of that year — begins with protests in Timișoara (16 December) and reaches Bucharest by 21 December. On 22 December, Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena flee by helicopter from the roof of the Central Committee building. Captured at Târgoviște, they are tried by military tribunal and executed on 25 December 1989. The revolution claims over 1,000 lives across Romania.
• 2007 – Today Romania joins the European Union on 1 January 2007. Bucharest rapidly emerges as one of Central and Eastern Europe’s fastest-growing economies, driven by IT & software outsourcing, financial services and a booming consumer market. The historic Old Town (Centrul Vechi) is revived as a cultural and nightlife destination. The Palace of Parliament — once a symbol of Communist megalomania — is now the largest building in the EU by floor area and one of Bucharest’s most-visited attractions. Annual visitor numbers exceed 3 million.

✈️ Bucharest Airports