Santa trackers 2026: NORAD, Google and a time for every UK town

Which Santa trackers are there, and when does each start?

There are two worldwide trackers, NORAD Tracks Santa and Google’s Santa Tracker, and ours, which works place by place for the UK. All three follow the same idea: Santa sets off from the North Pole on Christmas Eve and works his way round the world with the night.

NORAD Tracks Santa (noradsanta.org). 2026 dates are not announced yet (checked 12 November 2026): its website still shows last year’s season. Last year, NORAD’s announcement of 28 November 2025 said the website “will launch on Dec. 1”, with Santa’s North Pole Village: “a holiday countdown, games, movie theater, holiday music, web store, and more.” Its phone line ran “from 4 a.m. to midnight MST” on 24 December, which is 11:00 on Christmas Eve to 07:00 on Christmas Day in the UK. NORAD’s programme page, written for that 2025 season, says live tracking on the website began “at 2:00 a.m. MST on December 24th”, which is 09:00 UK. NORAD’s times have changed from year to year, so check its own site in December.

Google’s Santa Tracker (santatracker.google.com). 2026 dates are not announced yet (checked 12 November 2026). Google’s site describes its village as a place to “Explore, play and learn with Santa’s elves all December long”, and the live map of Santa’s flight comes on Christmas Eve. We could not find Google’s own 2025 announcement. The last start time Google published that we could read was for 2019: “Dec. 24 at 2 AM Pacific time”, which was 10:00 UK. Treat that as an old example, not this year’s time.

Our Santa tracker (/santa-tracker). It is counting down now, and gives the time Santa is due in any UK town or village from a postcode. The live flight starts at 10:00 on Christmas Eve, UK time, and the map follows him over Britain through the night.

NORAD Tracks Santa: how it began, the phone line and the apps

NORAD is the North American Aerospace Defense Command, run jointly by the United States and Canada. Its Santa tracker began by accident. NORAD’s programme page says: “The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement printed a telephone number for children to call Santa. One child calling misdialed the number and happened to reach the CONAD Crew Commander’s operations hotline.” The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, “had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole.”

CONAD, the Continental Air Defense Command, was NORAD’s predecessor. NORAD’s site says it “replaced CONAD in 1958 and took over the mission of tracking Santa’s flight around the world, and they have been tracking Santa every year since!” It says the programme “is made possible by volunteers and through the generous support of corporate licensees who bear virtually all of the costs.”

The phone line. NORAD’s site says you can “call 1 877 HI-NORAD (1 877 446-6723) to talk directly to a Santa Tracker”. Last year the live operators answered “from 4 a.m. to midnight MST” on 24 December, 11:00 on Christmas Eve to 07:00 on Christmas Day in UK time. It is a North American number. For 2025 NORAD also added “a web-based calling option” on its website, and said that after the operators finish, “trackers can continue to follow Santa’s flight until 3 a.m. on Dec. 25” (10:00 UK on Christmas Day) on its recorded line or its website. NORAD says more than 1,000 volunteers answer “the hundreds of thousands of phone calls” on the day.

The website and apps. On Christmas Eve you can follow Santa on noradsanta.org or “through the official NORAD Tracks Santa application from the Apple App store or Google Play”, with videos from what NORAD calls its Santa Cams. In 2025 NORAD said its website was available in nine languages, and that it would also be on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X, and on Amazon Alexa, SiriusXM and OnStar. NORAD says Santa “usually starts at the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean and travels west.”

Google’s Santa Tracker: the village and the map

Google said in 2021 that its Santa Tracker “launched in 2004”, and that “up to 20 or so Googlers volunteer to help make it happen every year”. Through December the site is Santa’s Village, which Google describes as a place to “Explore, play and learn with Santa’s elves all December long”.

On Christmas Eve the village gives way to the map. In Google’s own words from 2019, “A live map will track the magic, showing Santa’s location”, and “the Santa Tracker will display how far they are from your town and how long it will take for them to get there.” Google has not said yet what is new for 2026.

What time does Santa come?

NORAD’s answer is that nobody can say for sure, but he waits until children are asleep: “NORAD tracks Santa, but only Santa knows his route, which means we cannot predict where and when he will arrive at your house. We do, however, know from history that it appears he arrives only when children are asleep! In most countries, it seems Santa arrives between 9:00 p.m. and midnight on December 24th. If children are still awake when Santa arrives, he moves on to other houses. He returns later, but only when the children are asleep!”

Ours gives a time for every town and village in the UK, worked out from where you live, and a time to be asleep by. It is make-believe and made for fun: Santa’s flight plan is ours, it is the same every year, and the time is the same for every visitor. Put your postcode into the Santa tracker to see yours, or look your city up in the timetable of every city.

A few to start with: London, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff and Belfast.

Our Santa tracker: a time for every UK town and village

NORAD and Google follow Santa round the world. Ours follows him over Britain, place by place. Put in a postcode and it finds your own town, village or hamlet and shows the time Santa is due and when to be asleep by. Your postcode goes only to postcodes.io, a free postcode service, to find where you are, and never to us.

Before Christmas Eve it counts down the sleeps. From 10:00 on Christmas Eve it shows his flight live: over the rest of the world first, then across the UK through the night, with the lights of each city turning gold as he passes. 362 cities and towns have their own page, with sunset on Christmas Eve, where he comes from and goes next, and a ticket to save or share.

The flight plan is make-believe. The weather warnings on it are real, from the Met Office.

Which Santa tracker should I use?

For the whole world, and the history: NORAD Tracks Santa. It has run since 1955, it has a phone line on the day, and its app is on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

For games through December and a live map on the night: Google’s Santa Tracker. The village has games and things to explore all through December.

For the time Santa reaches your own town: ours. It is the only one of the three that gives a time for every UK town and village, and a time to be asleep by.

There is no need to choose. You can watch the worldwide map in the afternoon and look up your own town’s time at bedtime.

Christmas, sorted

Our other Christmas guides: the last posting dates for Christmas 2026, Christmas scams and how to check, batteries for Christmas toys and button battery safety, and Christmas tree and fairy light fire safety.