The Santa Tracker Is Live: See What Time He Reaches Your Town

What the Santa tracker does

The Santa tracker answers the question children ask every December: what time will Santa get here? Put in a ZIP code and it names your own city or town and gives Santa's time there, in your own time zone, and a time to be asleep by. The timetable lists every stop on his route, time zone by time zone, from Eastern time to Hawaii.

Until Christmas Eve it counts down the sleeps. On Christmas Eve, from 5:00 AM Eastern, the map shows his flight live: around the rest of the world first, then across the US one time zone at a time, with each city's light turning gold as he passes. Everyone sees the same sleigh at the same moment.

A time between 9 PM and midnight, wherever you live

NORAD's own answer to "what time does Santa come?" is that "it appears he arrives only when children are asleep", and that "In most countries, it seems Santa arrives between 9:00 p.m. and midnight on December 24th." Our flight plan keeps to that: he crosses America from Eastern time to Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska and Hawaii, so every city and town gets its time between 9 PM and midnight in its own evening.

599 cities and towns have their own page, with Santa's time, when to be asleep by, sunset on Christmas Eve, where he comes from and goes next, and a ticket to save or share. A few: New York City, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Anchorage, Honolulu and Washington, D.C..

The honest part

Santa's flight plan is ours and it is make-believe: we work out his route and times from a timetable, so the time for a place is the same for every visitor and the same every year. The weather alerts on the tracker are real: while he is over a state on Christmas Eve, the board shows the National Weather Service alerts in effect there. Sunset times and distances are real sums too.

Your ZIP code stays in your browser. It reads a small file from our site that covers every ZIP code starting with the same three digits, and the full ZIP code is never sent to us or stored.

How it fits with NORAD's and Google's trackers

NORAD Tracks Santa, which began in 1955, and Google's Santa Tracker follow Santa around the whole world on Christmas Eve. Ours works place by place across the US. Neither NORAD nor Google had published its 2026 dates when we checked on November 12, 2026. Our guide to the Santa trackers has what each shows, the latest start times each published, in US time, and NORAD's phone line.