Sunset and sunrise times, golden hour and the sky score for Cape Town, ZA.
See tonight's live sunset score for Cape Town → Next sunrise score →
A sunset time tells you when to look. It does not tell you whether there will be anything to see. That comes down to cloud height. High cloud catches the light from underneath after the sun has dropped below the horizon, and that is what turns the sky red and gold. Low cloud sits on the horizon like a wall and blocks the whole thing. A completely clear sky gives you a plain orange dot and very little colour.
Golden Hour scores Cape Town from 0 to 10 every day on exactly that — the proportion of high versus low cloud at Cape Town's own sunset hour (and, for sunrise, its own sunrise hour), not some national average. Check tonight's score.
Mid-month sunrise and sunset times for 2026, in local time. A mid latitude, so sunset time moves by a couple of hours across the year and golden hour lasts a useful while.
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Golden hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 5:50 AM | 8:00 PM | 28 min |
| February | 6:21 AM | 7:39 PM | 26 min |
| March | 6:45 AM | 7:04 PM | 25 min |
| April | 7:08 AM | 6:23 PM | 25 min |
| May | 7:31 AM | 5:53 PM | 27 min |
| June | 7:49 AM | 5:43 PM | 28 min |
| July | 7:49 AM | 5:55 PM | 27 min |
| August | 7:25 AM | 6:16 PM | 26 min |
| September | 6:46 AM | 6:37 PM | 25 min |
| October | 6:05 AM | 6:59 PM | 26 min |
| November | 5:34 AM | 7:27 PM | 28 min |
| December | 5:29 AM | 7:53 PM | 29 min |
Cape Town sits at 33.92°S, 18.42°E, in the southern hemisphere, on Africa/Johannesburg time. Sunrise and sunset times are computed from latitude and longitude using the NOAA solar equations and are accurate to within a minute or two.