How far prayer times move across a US year
Updated by the Mudawem team
Across the twelve largest US metropolitan areas, Isha moves between 2 hours 53 minutes and 5 hours 33 minutes between its earliest and latest points in the year. Fajr moves between 1 hour 14 minutes and 3 hours 35 minutes. Dhuhr falls inside a 9-to-5 workday on all 365 days in every one of those metros, and Asr falls between 9am and 6pm on all 365 days in every one of them.
Where these numbers come from
We compute prayer times for a living, so we ran our own engine over a full calendar year rather than quoting someone else. Every figure below was generated by the same code that serves the Mudawem app, using the North America (ISNA) calculation method and the Standard position for Asr, which are the app defaults. Times are local wall clock, so daylight saving is included exactly as a person experiences it. The year is 2027 and each metro is measured at its city center coordinates.
Local wall clock matters. Roughly one hour of the movement in Dhuhr is not the sun at all, it is the daylight saving change. That is why Dhuhr swings about 1 hour 26 minutes in every metro on the list while the other prayers vary widely by latitude.
How much each prayer moves, by metro
| Metro | Fajr | Dhuhr | Asr | Maghrib | Isha |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York, NY | 2h 30m | 1h 26m | 2h 50m | 4h 03m | 4h 20m |
| Los Angeles, CA | 1h 49m | 1h 26m | 2h 19m | 3h 25m | 3h 35m |
| Chicago, IL | 2h 39m | 1h 26m | 2h 56m | 4h 10m | 4h 31m |
| Houston, TX | 1h 29m | 1h 26m | 2h 02m | 3h 04m | 3h 12m |
| Dallas, TX | 1h 43m | 1h 26m | 2h 13m | 3h 19m | 3h 28m |
| Detroit, MI | 2h 42m | 1h 26m | 2h 58m | 4h 13m | 4h 35m |
| Minneapolis, MN | 3h 06m | 1h 26m | 3h 12m | 4h 32m | 5h 01m |
| Philadelphia, PA | 2h 25m | 1h 26m | 2h 46m | 3h 58m | 4h 15m |
| Atlanta, GA | 1h 48m | 1h 26m | 2h 18m | 3h 24m | 3h 33m |
| Washington, DC | 2h 17m | 1h 26m | 2h 41m | 3h 52m | 4h 07m |
| Seattle, WA | 3h 35m | 1h 25m | 3h 27m | 4h 54m | 5h 33m |
| Miami, FL | 1h 14m | 1h 26m | 1h 46m | 2h 47m | 2h 53m |
Latitude drives almost all of the variation. Seattle sits at about 47.6 degrees north and Miami at about 25.8, and the difference shows up as Seattle's Isha moving nearly twice as far across the year as Miami's.
The earliest and latest each prayer actually falls
| Metro | Fajr earliest | Fajr latest | Asr earliest | Asr latest | Isha earliest | Isha latest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York, NY | 3:45 (Jun 13) | 6:15 (Nov 6) | 2:11pm (Dec 2) | 5:01pm (Jul 19) | 5:51pm (Nov 30) | 10:11pm (Jul 2) |
| Los Angeles, CA | 4:17 (Jun 11) | 6:06 (Nov 6) | 2:26pm (Nov 26) | 4:45pm (Jul 25) | 5:58pm (Nov 26) | 9:33pm (Jul 3) |
| Chicago, IL | 3:31 (Jun 18) | 6:10 (Nov 6) | 2:02pm (Dec 2) | 4:58pm (Jul 15) | 5:43pm (Dec 3) | 10:14pm (Jun 28) |
| Houston, TX | 5:03 (Jun 8) | 6:32 (Nov 6) | 3:03pm (Nov 27) | 5:05pm (Aug 1) | 6:32pm (Nov 26) | 9:44pm (Jul 6) |
| Dallas, TX | 4:57 (Jun 9) | 6:40 (Nov 6) | 3:03pm (Nov 25) | 5:16pm (Aug 3) | 6:34pm (Nov 25) | 10:02pm (Jul 2) |
| Detroit, MI | 4:10 (Jun 14) | 6:52 (Nov 6) | 2:42pm (Dec 4) | 5:40pm (Jul 20) | 6:24pm (Dec 3) | 10:59pm (Jun 27) |
| Minneapolis, MN | 3:29 (Jun 18) | 6:35 (Nov 6) | 2:14pm (Dec 5) | 5:26pm (Jul 17) | 6:00pm (Dec 8) | 11:01pm (Jun 28) |
| Philadelphia, PA | 3:54 (Jun 14) | 6:19 (Nov 6) | 2:18pm (Dec 1) | 5:04pm (Jul 21) | 5:56pm (Dec 5) | 10:11pm (Jul 2) |
| Atlanta, GA | 5:03 (Jun 11) | 6:51 (Nov 6) | 3:11pm (Nov 27) | 5:29pm (Jul 25) | 6:43pm (Nov 26) | 10:16pm (Jul 4) |
| Washington, DC | 4:08 (Jun 12) | 6:25 (Nov 6) | 2:28pm (Dec 3) | 5:09pm (Jul 25) | 6:06pm (Nov 28) | 10:13pm (Jun 28) |
| Seattle, WA | 2:58 (Jun 16) | 6:33 (Nov 6) | 2:01pm (Dec 4) | 5:28pm (Jul 11) | 5:52pm (Dec 5) | 11:25pm (Jun 27) |
| Miami, FL | 5:16 (Jun 6) | 6:30 (Mar 14) | 3:10pm (Nov 20) | 4:56pm (Aug 15) | 6:37pm (Nov 21) | 9:30pm (Jul 5) |
The latest Fajr lands on November 6 in eleven of the twelve, which is the Saturday before daylight saving time ends. Miami is the exception, because it is far enough south that the seasonal swing is smaller than the clock change.
Two of the five are inside the workday, every day
This is the finding with the most practical weight. In all twelve metros, on all 365 days of 2027:
- Dhuhr falls between 9am and 5pm. Every day, everywhere on the list, without exception.
- Asr falls between 9am and 6pm. Every day, everywhere on the list, without exception.
So for anyone working or studying a conventional schedule in a US city, two of the five daily prayers are permanently inside the part of the day that belongs to someone else. They are not occasionally inconvenient. They are structurally inside work, all year, and no amount of planning moves them out.
That reframes what consistency actually requires. If two prayers will always fall during work, then the useful question is not how to remember them but what they attach to inside the workday, and how you know afterwards whether you got to them. That is the subject of how to pray five times a day consistently.
Why Fajr behaves differently from everything else
Fajr moves the most in relative terms and it moves in the direction that hurts. In Seattle it is as early as 2:58am in mid June. In Minneapolis, 3:29am. Those are not times a person reaches by trying harder, which is why treating Fajr as a sleep question rather than a discipline question tends to be the change that works.
There is a second effect worth knowing about at northern latitudes. Above roughly 48 degrees north, there are nights in high summer when the sun never dips far enough below the horizon for the twilight angle a method asks for, so no true Fajr or Isha time exists and calculators fall back to an approximation rule. Seattle sits just under that line. Anywhere further north, expect apps to disagree in June, because they are each choosing a different fallback.
Reproducing this
The method is straightforward if you want to check it. Compute solar noon for the date and longitude, correct with the equation of time, solve for the sun reaching the method's twilight angle for Fajr and Isha, use the shadow-length ratio for Asr, and convert to local time using the zone's offset for that specific date so daylight saving lands where it really lands. Coordinates are each city's center. The one place implementations commonly differ is the fallback used when a twilight angle is unreachable, which is why our northern numbers may not match another calculator's to the minute.
Common questions
- Why do prayer times change every day?
- Because four of the five are defined by the position of the sun rather than by the clock. Fajr and Isha are set by how far the sun is below the horizon at dawn and dusk, Maghrib by sunset, and Asr by the length of an object's shadow. All of those shift daily as the earth moves along its orbit, and the further from the equator you live the more they shift.
- How much do prayer times change over a year in the United States?
- It depends almost entirely on latitude. Across the twelve largest US metros in 2027, Isha varies by 2 hours 53 minutes in Miami and 5 hours 33 minutes in Seattle between its earliest and latest points in the year. Fajr varies by 1 hour 14 minutes in Miami and 3 hours 35 minutes in Seattle. Dhuhr moves only about 1 hour 26 minutes anywhere, and most of that is daylight saving rather than the sun.
- Which prayers fall during the workday?
- Dhuhr and Asr, essentially always. In all twelve of the largest US metro areas, Dhuhr fell between 9am and 5pm on all 365 days of 2027 and Asr fell between 9am and 6pm on all 365 days. For anyone on a conventional US schedule, two of the five daily prayers are inside working hours all year round.
- Why is Fajr so early in summer?
- Fajr is tied to the start of dawn, which arrives earlier as the sun's path gets higher in summer, and the effect grows with latitude. In June 2027, Fajr falls at 2:58am in Seattle, 3:29am in Minneapolis and 3:31am in Chicago, against 5:16am in Miami on the same date.
- Why does my prayer app show a different time than this?
- Most likely the calculation method or the Asr position. These figures use the North America (ISNA) method with Standard Asr. Switching to the Muslim World League or Egyptian method moves Fajr earlier by up to 45 minutes in summer, and the Hanafi position for Asr moves it later by around 74 minutes at the June solstice in Chicago. Dhuhr and Maghrib are the same under every method.