The 2027 eclipse in Gibraltar: 4 min 29 s of totality, on the same time as Spain

Yes. Gibraltar is inside the path of totality and, according to our calculation, the Sun will be completely covered for 4 min 29 s, from 10:45:34 to 10:50:03, with maximum eclipse at 10:47:48. Gibraltar keeps the same time as Spain (UTC+2), so there’s no need to touch your watch. And since last summer the land border can be crossed without passport checks, under the agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom, which applies provisionally.

The times

Gibraltar isn’t in the data of the IGN (Spain’s National Geographic Institute), which cover Spain, so its duration comes from our engine. La Línea de la Concepción, on the other side of the border, has 4 min 23 s according to the IGN. With the same calculation for all of them, Gibraltar gets eleven seconds less than Tarifa and twenty-one less than Ceuta. To compare it with the rest of the path, there’s the map.

In Gibraltar the Sun will be 38.4° high at maximum. The partial phases last more than an hour on each side of totality, and you need glasses for all of them.

The same time as Spain

On that day Gibraltar is on UTC+2, like mainland Spain, so the times on this page apply equally on both sides of the border. Morocco, across the Strait, will be two hours behind; that’s explained in watch the eclipse in Tangier.

Crossing from La Línea

Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs explains that the Agreement on Gibraltar between the European Union and the United Kingdom provides for the removal of “all physical barriers, checks and controls on people and goods moving between Spain and Gibraltar”, and that “there will be no passport checks between the two territories”. According to the UK government’s travel advice, it has applied provisionally since 15 July. Spanish police carry out the Schengen checks on anyone entering Gibraltar through the port or the airport. The UK government’s travel advice tells it the same way: anyone arriving by plane goes through two checks, Gibraltar’s and Schengen’s, and can then cross freely into Spain by land.

None of those pages says which document you need to carry when crossing on foot. Take yours, and before you go check the Spanish Foreign Ministry’s page on Gibraltar (in Spanish) or the UK government’s entry requirements for Gibraltar. If you’re driving, arrive the day before: totality falls on a Monday in August at mid-morning, and the critical hours on the roads are in traffic on eclipse day (in Spanish). The rest of the trip through the south is in getting there.

Where to stand: the Rock is to the east

Jay Anderson, the meteorologist behind Eclipsophile, places the eclipse as seen from Gibraltar to the east (azimuth 95°) and 38° high. That is exactly the direction the steepest face of the Rock looks towards: the Rock is 426 m high, and on that side it drops in a cliff of 300 to 400 m. To the west, where the town is, the slope runs down more gently to the sea. According to Anderson, the ground flattens out towards Europa Point, at the southern tip, which has a clear view towards the Sun, and the flatter districts in the south stand a better chance of seeing it.

If you’re going to watch from a street right up against the rock, check the day before, at the same time, that you can see the Sun from there: on the Sunday it will be in practically the same place. How to work out whether anything will block it is in where to look during the eclipse.

The clouds and the levanter

Anderson gives Gibraltar a 74% chance of seeing the Sun. He himself says the figure is too pessimistic for anyone who can move, because it counts any cloud clinging to the Rock even if it doesn’t cover it entirely. Gibraltar’s webcams show that the morning stratus is usually patchy, with gaps.

With a levanter (the east wind, “levante” in Spanish) of between 15 and 40 km/h, a banner cloud often forms over the top of the Rock. Anderson explains that this cloud stays put and is easy to avoid, because it sits on the north side, next to the airport. Of the two winds of the Strait, the levanter is the more persistent: it can blow for days or weeks on end, especially in summer. The forecast for the last few days will be on the eclipse weather page (in Spanish).

The partial phases are watched through EN ISO 12312-2 glasses, and without a filter only during totality. How to check yours is in our guide to certified glasses.

Sources: duration and times for Gibraltar, Tarifa and Ceuta with the same calculation, and the Sun’s altitude: eclipseando’s engine (skyfield + DE440s); La Línea de la Concepción: IGN — eclipses.ign.es (in Spanish: duration and times of totality) and eclipseando’s engine (the rest); legal time in Gibraltar, Spain and Morocco: IANA time zone database (tzdata); Gibraltar — Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores (in Spanish: barriers, checks and passports; Schengen checks at the port and airport); Gibraltar travel advice: entry requirements — GOV.UK (checks at the airport and free passage by land into Spain); Total Solar Eclipse 2027 — Eclipsophile (direction of the Sun, the Rock’s relief, clouds and the levanter).