IERS confirms no leap second at the end of 2026

Category: Infrastructure
Status: confirmed
Sources: IERS Bulletin C 72, HN discussion
Summary: The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service issued Bulletin C 72 on 2026-07-06, announcing that no leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2026. No positive or negative leap second is scheduled. The difference between UTC and TAI stays at UTC minus TAI equal to -37 seconds, unchanged since 2017-01-01.
Why it matters: Systems that special-case leap seconds (NTP daemons, leap-smearing configurations, databases, and kernels) need no adjustment for the 2026 year-end boundary, and the offset between civil and atomic time has now held at 37 seconds since the last leap second in 2016.