What time does Santa come to Washington, D.C.?
Santa is due in Washington, D.C. at 9:53 PM Eastern on Christmas Eve.
42 sleeps until Santa comes to Washington.
Be asleep by 8:45 PM. He only lands when the lights are out.
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He only lands when everyone in Washington is asleep and the lights are out. Eastern time.
In the flight plan
He comes from Annapolis, Maryland (9:53 PM ET) and goes on to Arlington, Virginia (9:53 PM ET).
Sunset in Washington on Christmas Eve
It gets dark at 4:51 PM, so there are about 5 hours of night before he lands.
From the North Pole
How far Washington is from the North Pole, measured along the earth's surface.
More about Washington, D.C.
FEMA's hazards for the state, the live weather alerts and who to call.
Not quite Washington? Find your own place
Put in your ZIP code to see the time Santa is due in your own city or town. It stays in your browser.
Near Washington
- Arlington, Virginia4 miles9:53 PM ET
- Alexandria, Virginia6 miles9:53 PM ET
- Columbia, Maryland26 miles9:53 PM ET
- Annapolis, Maryland30 miles9:53 PM ET
- Baltimore, Maryland36 miles9:53 PM ET
Watch his sleigh live on the night, and see every city's time, on the Santa tracker map.
Questions
What time does Santa come to Washington?
Santa is due in Washington, D.C. at 9:53 PM Eastern on Christmas Eve. Children should be asleep by 8:45 PM, because he only lands when the lights are out. The time is from our make-believe flight plan, and it is the same every year.
When does the Santa tracker start?
The map and every city's time are here all through November and December. On Christmas Eve Santa leaves the North Pole at 5:00 AM Eastern, and the map follows him live, round the world and across America, until he is home at 6:00 AM Eastern on Christmas Day. He reaches Maine, his first American stop, at 9:00 PM Eastern.
Is the Santa tracker real?
The flight plan is ours and it is for fun: we work out Santa's route and times from a timetable, so everyone sees the same sleigh at the same moment. The weather alerts are real, read from the National Weather Service, and so are the sunset times and the distances. For the worldwide trackers, NORAD has followed Santa every Christmas Eve since 1955, and Google runs its own Santa Tracker.
Does it cost anything, and what happens to my ZIP code?
The tracker is free and there is nothing to sign up for. 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 finds yours inside it. The full ZIP code is never sent to us or anyone else, and it is not stored.
Santa's flight plan is make-believe, worked out from where you live. The weather alerts are real, from the National Weather Service.
Sunset times are worked out with the standard solar calculation. Distances are along the earth's surface.
Places from GeoNames (geonames.org), CC BY 4.0. State outlines from the U.S. Census Bureau, via us-atlas (ISC license). World map: Natural Earth.