When Is the Polar Night in Svalbard?

In Longyearbyen the Sun stays below the horizon from 27 October 2026 to 15 February 2027 and rises again on 16 February, by our computation. Yr’s Longyearbyen page says “Polar night until 16 Feb.”, and Visit Svalbard’s FAQ gives the dark season as 26 October to 16 February. The darkest weeks, with not even civil twilight at noon, run from about 14 November to 29 January in Visit Svalbard’s polar-night article.

The dates differ because the sources count different things. Here they are side by side:

Computed for Longyearbyen (78.22 N, 15.65 E). Visit Svalbard and Yr read November 2026.

The seasons page’s 11 November to 30 January matches neither definition we computed; the article’s 14 November to 29 January matches the civil one, and the FAQ’s 26 October to 16 February matches the days without sunrise.

Why Svalbard has a polar night

Longyearbyen lies at 78 degrees north, about 1,300 km north of the Arctic Circle. In winter the north pole is tilted away from the Sun. Just north of the Arctic Circle that keeps the Sun down for about a day around 21 December; at 78 degrees it keeps it down for 16 weeks, and for most of December it does not come within 10 degrees of the horizon.

What is left of the day

Computed for Longyearbyen, Norwegian time (UTC+1). Civil twilight: the Sun no more than 6 degrees below the horizon. Full darkness: more than 18 degrees below.

At the start of November there are still a few hours of twilight around midday. By mid-November that is gone, and around 21 December the sky is fully dark for more than 15 hours a day. After New Year the twilight creeps back, and on 16 February the Sun rises again.

The northern lights in the polar night

The dark is what the lights need. Visit Svalbard says that in the polar night you may even see them in the middle of the day if you are lucky, though daytime displays can be weaker than evening ones, and that guided northern lights tours run all day long. The tours on this site keep to the afternoon and evening: on 26 November 2026 and 20 January 2027 they started between 3:30 PM and 10:00 PM.

For one evening out, Arctic Footsteps’ Longyearbyen: Northern Lights Adventure by Car costs from US$184 a person (checked November 2026): hotel pickup, about 3 hours, up to 8 guests, and a stop near the Seed Vault on the way into Adventdalen.

It started at 3:30 PM, 7:00 PM or 8:30 PM on 26 November 2026, 20 January and 17 February 2027, at US$184.04 a person each date (GetYourGuide, checked November 2026). The tours compared sets out the other five.

Other trips run in the dark too, from the coal mine to the Seed Vault; longyearbyentrips.com covers what runs in Longyearbyen in winter.

Polar night and midnight sun

The opposite season follows. Visit Svalbard’s FAQ gives the midnight sun as 20 April to 23 August, and its seasons page splits it into 20 April to 16 May and 17 May to 23 August. Under the midnight sun the sky never gets dark, so the northern lights season ends well before it: by our computation full darkness is gone from about 5 March 2027. The best time, month by month has the dark hours for each month.