How many days until Easter?
Live countdown to Easter Sunday - Western (Gregorian) and Orthodox. Includes the exact date for this year and next.
How Easter’s date is calculated
Easter Sunday is a movable feast. The rule, set by the early church, is the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, an ecclesiastical full moon taken from fixed tables rather than astronomical observation, on or after March 21. In the Gregorian calendar used by Western churches, that puts Easter between March 22 and April 25.
Most Orthodox churches apply the same rule using the older Julian calendar, which currently runs 13 days behind. Converted to the Gregorian calendar, Orthodox Easter falls between April 4 and May 8 in this century.
This page calculates both. Western Easter uses the Meeus/Jones/Butcher algorithm for the Gregorian calendar; Orthodox Easter uses Meeus’s Julian algorithm plus the 13-day offset, which holds through 2099. Each countdown runs to 00:00 on Easter Sunday in your local time zone and moves to the next year once that day begins.
Easter dates for the next five years
| Year | Western Easter | Orthodox Easter |
|---|---|---|
| 2027 | Sunday, March 28 | Sunday, May 2 |
| 2028 | Sunday, April 16 | Sunday, April 16 |
| 2029 | Sunday, April 1 | Sunday, April 8 |
| 2030 | Sunday, April 21 | Sunday, April 28 |
| 2031 | Sunday, April 13 | Sunday, April 13 |
The two dates coincide when the full-moon tables of both calendars point to the same Sunday, as they do in 2028 and 2031. Otherwise they are usually one, four or five weeks apart.
Dates that move with Easter
Several other days are counted from Western Easter Sunday, so they move with it: Ash Wednesday is 46 days before, Palm Sunday is a week before, Good Friday is two days before, Easter Monday is the day after, and Pentecost is 49 days after. Ascension Day is 39 days after Easter, always a Thursday.
Put the Easter countdown on your Home Screen
- Install Left on your iPhone, open Ahead and tap Add a date ahead.
- Search for Easter or Orthodox Easter. Because the date moves, the ready-made template asks you to set it: use the date from the table above.
- Save, then add Left’s Ahead widget to your Home Screen or Lock Screen and choose Easter in Edit Widget.
Easter does not repeat on the same date, so add next year’s date once this one passes. Left’s widgets are free, and the free plan includes 2 countdowns; see the countdown widget page.
Questions
When is Easter 2027?
Western Easter 2027 is on Sunday, March 28. Orthodox Easter 2027 is on Sunday, May 2.
Why does Easter fall on a different date every year?
Easter is the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon on or after March 21. Because it follows the moon’s cycle as well as the calendar, its date moves between March 22 and April 25 in Western churches.
What are the earliest and latest possible dates for Easter?
Western Easter can fall as early as March 22 and as late as April 25. Orthodox Easter currently falls between April 4 and May 8 in the Gregorian calendar.
When do Western and Orthodox Easter fall on the same day?
It happens in some years when both calculations point to the same Sunday. In the next five years they coincide in 2028 (April 16) and 2031 (April 13).
Start noticing what matters.
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Scan or search "Left" on the App Store.