Best Time to Call the Faroe Islands

The single biggest mix-up with the Faroe Islands happens before the phone even rings: because the islands are part of the Kingdom of Denmark, callers often assume they share Denmark's +45 country code and CET/CEST clock. Neither is true. The Faroe Islands run their own complete telecommunications system under +298, and they sit in a different time zone from Copenhagen — a full hour behind, year-round.

Get the code and the clock right and the rest is straightforward: a small, compact business community keeping conventional European office hours, with one major seasonal exception — the Ólavsøka festival in late July, when much of the country steps away from work to celebrate the national day.

The Faroe Islands use Western European Time (WET, UTC+0), shifting to Western European Summer Time (WEST, UTC+1) during daylight saving — on the same schedule as the UK and most of Western Europe (last Sunday of March to last Sunday of October in 2026).

That puts the Faroes in a different zone from mainland Denmark, which uses CET/CEST (UTC+1/UTC+2). Denmark is always one hour ahead of the Faroe Islands, year-round — the two never share a clock despite being part of the same kingdom. The Faroes do, however, keep exactly the same time as the UK, since both shift for DST on the same calendar weeks.

The sweet spots in the Faroe Islands are mid-morning (9:30 AM–12:00 PM) and mid-afternoon (1:00–4:00 PM). The table below translates those into your local time.

UK callers have the easiest job of any guide on this site: the Faroe Islands share the UK's exact clock year-round, so any point in a normal UK working day works. US East Coast callers get the cleanest overlap in the second window — roughly 8:00–11:00 AM ET reaches the Faroese afternoon session. US Pacific callers need an early-morning slot to catch either Faroese window.

Standard Faroese office hours run 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday to Friday — a conventional Northern European working day with no unusual midday shutdown to plan around.

Government offices sometimes run shortened summer hours (historically around 10:00 AM–2:00 PM) for a stretch in July and into August — worth a quick check if you're calling a public-sector contact during that window.

Faroese business culture is direct, informal, and efficient, similar to wider Nordic norms — expect calls to get to the point quickly, with less relationship-building small talk than in Southern Europe.

Aim for Tuesday through Thursday for any normal week — Mondays carry the week's backlog and Fridays wind down early. But the single biggest date to build around isn't a weekday pattern at all: it's Ólavsøka.

Ólavsøka (St. Olav's Festival), held around 28–29 July, is the Faroe Islands' national festival and its biggest event of the year by a wide margin — commemorating the death of King Olav II of Norway and doubling as the opening of the Faroese parliament (Løgting) each year. Expect days of concerts, rowing races, sports competitions, and street celebrations centered on Tórshavn.

Treat the whole surrounding week as reduced availability, not just the two official dates (28 July half-day, 29 July full holiday). Much of the country's business and government activity slows well before and after the festival itself — a close parallel to how Italy's Ferragosto disrupts far more than its single calendar date suggests.

Outside of Ólavsøka, the days around Christmas and New Year (24 December–1 January) bring a shorter, more conventional European holiday lull, and both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are half-days by local convention.

On these dates, most Faroese offices are closed. Easter-linked dates (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Ascension Day, Whit Sunday/Monday, Prayer Day) move each year with the Easter calendar.

• New Year's Day — Thursday, 1 January 2026
• Maundy Thursday — Thursday, 2 April 2026
• Good Friday — Friday, 3 April 2026
• Easter Monday — Monday, 6 April 2026
• Flag Day — Saturday, 25 April 2026
• Great Prayer Day (Store Bededag) — Friday, 1 May 2026
• Ascension Day — Thursday, 14 May 2026
• Whit Monday — Monday, 25 May 2026
• Constitution Day — Friday, 5 June 2026 · half-day holiday
• St. Olav's Eve (Ólavsøkuaftan) — Tuesday, 28 July 2026 · half-day holiday
• St. Olav's Day (Ólavsøka) — National Day — Wednesday, 29 July 2026
• Christmas Eve — Thursday, 24 December 2026 · half-day, many offices close early
• Christmas Day — Friday, 25 December 2026
• Boxing Day — Saturday, 26 December 2026
• New Year's Eve — Thursday, 31 December 2026 · half-day, many offices close early

Ólavsøka (28–29 July) is far more disruptive than its two official dates suggest — treat most of the surrounding week as reduced-availability, similar to how Italy's Ferragosto works. Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are both conventional half-days, with many offices closing by early afternoon.

The Faroe Islands are part of the Kingdom of Denmark, but they are not part of Denmark's telephone system. The two share a monarch, a currency peg, and certain governmental functions — but the Faroes run their own complete, independent telecommunications network, regulator, and country code. Dialing +45 (Denmark) for a Faroese number will simply fail to connect, no matter how carefully the rest of the digits are dialed.

The same pattern holds for Greenland, the third constituent part of the Danish Kingdom: Greenland has its own separate code too, +299. Denmark, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland each have distinct international dialing codes despite their shared kingdom — a detail that catches out callers who reasonably but incorrectly assume "part of Denmark" means "dial +45."

The confusion doesn't stop at the code — it extends to the clock. Mainland Denmark uses CET/CEST, a full hour ahead of the Faroe Islands' WET/WEST, year-round. A caller who correctly dials +298 but then assumes Copenhagen office hours apply will still end up calling an hour too early or too late.

For calls placed correctly: Faroese, Danish, and English are all workable languages for business, and the communication style is direct and unpretentious, consistent with wider Nordic norms.

• Dialing +45 (Denmark) instead of +298. The Faroe Islands have their own complete country code — +45 will simply fail to connect a Faroese number, no matter how the rest of the digits are formatted.
• Assuming the Faroes share Denmark's time zone. Mainland Denmark runs CET/CEST, a full hour ahead of the Faroe Islands' WET/WEST, year-round.
• Looking for a Faroese area code. There isn't one — Faroese numbers are a flat 6-digit format with no area code or trunk prefix.
• Getting caught by the US/EU DST-mismatch weeks — the US and the Faroes (which follows the EU/UK schedule) change clocks on different weekends in spring and autumn, briefly shifting the usual 5-hour US Eastern gap to 4 hours.
• Scheduling important calls in late July without checking for Ólavsøka — the national festival empties much of Tórshavn's business community for the better part of a week.

The simplest way to stay inside the right window is to treat the Faroe Islands as running on UK time for scheduling purposes — any normal UK working hour works, and for US callers, blocking 8:00–11:00 AM ET as a standing call time, Tuesday through Thursday, reliably catches the Faroese afternoon session.

A local Faroese +298 virtual number helps too: a familiar +298 caller ID reads as local rather than an unknown international string, useful for businesses serving the islands' fishing, aquaculture, or tourism sectors. My Country Mobile provisions +298 virtual numbers — entirely separate from Denmark's +45 — that route to any device or team, anywhere. Backed by MCM's network reaching 190+ countries with 99.99% uptime, it lets a US or UK team present a genuinely local Faroese presence without a physical office in Tórshavn.