diff --git a/Lib/test/datetimetester.py b/Lib/test/datetimetester.py
index 4f20ffd0784..1f992f97473 100644
--- a/Lib/test/datetimetester.py
+++ b/Lib/test/datetimetester.py
@@ -3463,6 +3463,14 @@ class TestDateTimeTZ(TestDateTime, TZInfoBase, unittest.TestCase):
         self.assertEqual(dt, local)
         self.assertEqual(local.strftime("%z %Z"), "-0400 EDT")
 
+    @support.run_with_tz('EST+05EDT,M3.2.0,M11.1.0')
+    def test_astimezone_default_near_fold(self):
+        # Issue #26616.
+        u = datetime(2015, 11, 1, 5, tzinfo=timezone.utc)
+        t = u.astimezone()
+        s = t.astimezone()
+        self.assertEqual(t.tzinfo, s.tzinfo)
+
     def test_aware_subtract(self):
         cls = self.theclass
 
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 945527c96cb..ca36123ee59 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -232,6 +232,8 @@ Core and Builtins
 Library
 -------
 
+- Issue #26616: Fixed a bug in datetime.astimezone() method.
+
 - Issue #26637: The :mod:`importlib` module now emits an :exc:`ImportError`
   rather than a :exc:`TypeError` if :func:`__import__` is tried during the
   Python shutdown process but :data:`sys.path` is already cleared (set to
diff --git a/Modules/_datetimemodule.c b/Modules/_datetimemodule.c
index 347a9d90dc8..261c4bc6e70 100644
--- a/Modules/_datetimemodule.c
+++ b/Modules/_datetimemodule.c
@@ -4753,7 +4753,12 @@ local_timezone(PyDateTime_DateTime *utc_time)
     PyObject *nameo = NULL;
     const char *zone = NULL;
 
-    delta = datetime_subtract((PyObject *)utc_time, PyDateTime_Epoch);
+    delta = new_delta(ymd_to_ord(GET_YEAR(utc_time), GET_MONTH(utc_time),
+                                 GET_DAY(utc_time)) - 719163,
+                      60 * (60 * DATE_GET_HOUR(utc_time) +
+                            DATE_GET_MINUTE(utc_time)) +
+                      DATE_GET_SECOND(utc_time),
+                      0, 0);
     if (delta == NULL)
         return NULL;
     one_second = new_delta(0, 1, 0, 0);