The duration of faces with emotional expressions is usually overestimated compared to neutral ones. This is associated with an increased arousal of emotional stimuli. From research in social interaction it is known that the distance to others affects the evaluation the interpersonal contact. In addition, reduced distance to emotional stimuli was shown to increase their perceived intensity. We assumed that the temporal overestimation of emotional compared to neutral faces is pronounced more when faces are presented close compared to farther away from the observer. To investigate this, participants categorized angry, sad, and neutral faces with varying duration (400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1400, 1600 ms) at a distance of 60 cm and 120 cm from the observer as either short or long. An effect of emotion on duration estimation as reported in the literature did not occur. However, faces presented in close compared to far distance were temporally overestimated, but only when in the testing order far distance was presented first. We discuss the impact of spatial reference effects for estimating durations.