Delegates from 69 countries vote to end the practice of adding leap seconds, a periodic adjustment meant to keep Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) closely aligned with Earth’s rotation. The decision is taken at a conference in France of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, which coordinates global standards for time and other measurements.
Under the new approach, UTC will no longer use leap seconds. Instead, a “leap hour” framework allows Earth’s rotation and official time to drift by up to an hour before any further correction is considered. Outlets describe the change as a major shift in timekeeping, aimed at reducing complexity for computer and communication systems that need to handle leap-second insertions.
While multiple reports emphasize that the change follows decades of debate, they differ mainly in phrasing—some call it a “scrapping” of leap seconds, while others stress that the transition and any resulting drift could unfold over very long periods. All sources point to the same vote and the same direction: a move away from leap-second corrections toward a less frequent, hour-based adjustment.
