Where Is Santa Now? Live Santa Tracker with UK Times
Where is Santa now? Our live Santa tracker shows you on a world map. On Christmas Eve you can see which country the sleigh is flying over, where it is heading next and how many miles Santa has covered. Before Christmas, a countdown ticks away to take-off.
The journey begins on the morning of 24 December, UK time, over the Pacific. Santa reaches the UK at about 22:00 on Christmas Eve, when the stockings are hung and the mince pie is waiting by the fireplace. All times on this page are in UK time (GMT).
Below the tracker you will find the full route with times, the story of the famous NORAD Santa tracker (including the RAF's part in it) and a few numbers on just how fast Santa would have to fly.
Live Santa tracker UK: here is Santa
- Kiribati (Christmas Island)08:00
- New Zealand, Tonga and Samoa09:00
- Sydney and Melbourne11:00
- Japan and Korea13:00
- China, the Philippines and Perth14:00
- Thailand and Vietnam15:00
- India16:30
- Dubai18:00
- Moscow, Turkey and Kenya19:00
- Finland, Greece and South Africa20:00
- Germany, France and Italy21:00
- The UK, Ireland and Portugal22:00
- Brazil and Argentina01:00
- New York and Toronto03:00
- Chicago and Mexico04:00
- Los Angeles06:00
- Hawaii08:00
- American Samoa09:00
The tracker runs right in your browser, so there is no app to download. If you cannot wait for Christmas Eve, press "Play a preview of the flight" and watch the whole trip in one minute. On the night itself, leave it open on a tablet by the tree so the children can see Santa getting closer before bedtime.
Santa's journey in numbers
What time does Santa come to the UK?
Santa flies with the night from east to west, so he reaches each place at roughly the same local time, about 22:00 on Christmas Eve. These are the main stops in UK time:
| Place | Santa arrives (UK time) |
|---|---|
| Kiribati (Christmas Island) | 08:00 on 24 Dec |
| Sydney and Melbourne | 11:00 on 24 Dec |
| Japan and Korea | 13:00 on 24 Dec |
| India | 16:30 on 24 Dec |
| Moscow, Turkey and Kenya | 19:00 on 24 Dec |
| Germany, France and Italy | 21:00 on 24 Dec |
| The UK, Ireland and Portugal | 22:00 on 24 Dec |
| New York and Toronto | 03:00 on 25 Dec |
| Los Angeles | 06:00 on 25 Dec |
| American Samoa | 09:00 on 25 Dec |
He starts in Kiribati because its Line Islands, Christmas Island among them, sit in UTC+14, the most advanced time zone in the world.3 That is 14 hours ahead of the UK. The last stop is American Samoa, by which point British children are already opening their stockings.
When do British children open their presents?
Mostly in the morning. In a YouGov survey, 22% of Britons planned to open their presents before breakfast on Christmas Day and 42% between breakfast and lunch, so almost three quarters (73%) were done before Christmas lunch.4
If you are wondering whether to say Santa or Father Christmas when you put the tracker on, our article Father Christmas vs Santa Claus has the answer (and the latest survey figures).
How it all began: the NORAD Santa tracker
In 1955 a Sears department store in Colorado Springs placed an advert in The Gazette inviting children to phone Santa. The number was one digit wrong and rang through to the air defence command centre instead.5
Colonel Harry Shoup picked up the first call and played along, telling the children where Santa was on the radar.2 A tradition was born, and in 1958 the newly formed North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, took it over.5
Today more than 1,000 service members, civilians and local volunteers help out, and the phone line is open until midnight on Christmas Eve, with hundreds of thousands of calls expected.1
The British connection: RAF Fylingdales and UK Space Command
Santa tracking is not only an American affair. According to Forces News, UK Armed Forces personnel at RAF High Wycombe, home of UK Space Command, monitor the skies on Christmas Eve and contribute data to the tracking.6
RAF Fylingdales on the North York Moors, which has tracked objects in space since 1963, has data links with NORAD. Its media officer once said that tracking Santa is "the most important job that we do".7
NORAD or Google: the best-known Santa trackers
| Tracker | Since | What makes it special |
|---|---|---|
| NORAD Tracks Santa | 1955 | Run by the North American air defence command, with a phone line and over 1,000 volunteers |
| Google Santa Tracker | 2004 | Games, videos and a village to explore in the run-up to Christmas |
| Our tracker above | 2026 | A live world map with every stop in UK time, no app needed |
Google launched its own Santa Tracker on 1 December 2004 and teamed up with NORAD from 2007 for about five years.8 In its first year it had around 25,000 users.9 By December 2018 it was drawing 42.2 million visitors.8
How fast would Santa have to fly?
Spy magazine worked it out, tongue firmly in cheek, in 1990: Santa would need to make 822.6 visits per second and fly at 650 miles per second, about 3,000 times the speed of sound.10 Luckily, the reindeer have never read it.
If your child is asking how Santa manages it at all, you might like our article Is Father Christmas real?. And to find out who is pulling the sleigh, read Santa's reindeer names.
Share this tracker
Run a website for families or schools? You are very welcome to link to the tracker:
<a href="https://personalisedsantavideo.co.uk/blog/where-is-santa-tracker/">Where is Santa now? Live Santa tracker</a>
Santa tracker: common questions
Where is Santa now?
On Christmas Eve the tracker at the top of this page shows live which country Santa is flying over and where he is heading next. Before then a countdown runs until take-off, and Santa is at the North Pole packing presents with the elves.
What time does Santa come to the UK?
On our tracker Santa reaches the UK at about 22:00 on Christmas Eve, 24 December, once children are asleep. The exact minute at your house is, of course, a closely guarded secret.
When does the Santa tracker start?
Santa sets off on the morning of Christmas Eve, UK time, from Kiribati in the Pacific, the first place to reach Christmas Eve night. Until then the tracker shows a countdown. You can play a one-minute preview of the whole flight at any time.
Is the NORAD Santa tracker available in the UK?
Yes. NORAD Tracks Santa is a website anyone can open, and British personnel at RAF High Wycombe and RAF Fylingdales help with the tracking, according to Forces News.
Where does Santa start his journey?
In Kiribati in the Pacific. Its Line Islands, including Christmas Island, are in UTC+14, the most advanced time zone in the world, so night falls there first. From there Santa flies west with the night.
How long does Santa's journey take?
About 25 hours. Because he flies west with the time zones, his night is much longer than ours: he starts in Kiribati on the morning of 24 December UK time and finishes in American Samoa on the morning of 25 December.
Sources
- 1Stars and Stripes: NORAD Santa tracker on Christmas Eve (2025) (stripes.com)
- 2NPR: NORAD's Santa Tracker began with a typo and a good sport (2014) (npr.org)
- 3Wikipedia: Time in Kiribati (en.wikipedia.org)
- 4YouGov: It's a (Christmas) wrap (2010) (yougov.com)
- 5Wikipedia: NORAD Tracks Santa (en.wikipedia.org)
- 6Forces News: Father Christmas cleared for take-off with UK Space Command (2025) (forcesnews.com)
- 7Forces News: NORAD's holiday heroes, how RAF and USAF personnel help Santa (forcesnews.com)
- 8Wikipedia: Google Santa Tracker (en.wikipedia.org)
- 9MarTech: Google's Santa-tracking tradition rivals NORAD (martech.org)
- 10Spy magazine 1990: Is There a Santa Claus? (transcript) (stanford.edu)