Why Diwali is so late in 2026: dates for all five days
Diwali 2026 falls on Sunday 8 November, 19 days later than in 2025. Dates for all five days, why an extra lunar month moved them, and city puja times.
Why it matters
If you are planning travel, leave or a family puja, the main Diwali night is Sunday 8 November, but the exact puja time and the dates of the last two days depend on your city and calendar.
Diwali arrives 19 days later this year than last. The main night of the festival, Lakshmi Puja, falls on Sunday 8 November 2026, against Monday 20 October in 2025, and the five days of Diwali 2026 run from Friday 6 November to Tuesday 10 November in most calendars.
Quick answer: Diwali 2026 is on Sunday 8 November. India’s central government lists it as a holiday that day. The festival is late because the Hindu calendar added an extra lunar month, Adhik Maas, from 17 May to 15 June 2026. Some panchangs (almanacs) put the last two days on 10 and 11 November instead of 9 and 10.
The reason is arithmetic. Hindu festivals follow the Moon, and twelve lunar months come up about 11 days short of a solar year. Every two to three years the calendar inserts a 13th month to catch up. 2026 is one of those years, so every festival after mid-June, from Raksha Bandhan to Diwali, slid back by about a month compared with where the lunar drift alone would have put it.
Diwali 2026 dates: all five days
Diwali is a five-day festival built around one new moon. It starts two days before the new moon (Amavasya) and ends two days after it. The dates below are for India. Two columns are shown because published calendars split on the fourth and fifth days, for reasons explained further down.
| Day | Festival | Most calendars | Drik Panchang (New Delhi) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dhanteras | Fri 6 Nov | Fri 6 Nov |
| 2 | Naraka Chaturdashi (Choti Diwali) | Sat 7 or Sun 8 Nov | Sun 8 Nov (before sunrise) |
| 3 | Lakshmi Puja (Diwali) | Sun 8 Nov | Sun 8 Nov |
| 4 | Govardhan Puja | Mon 9 Nov | Tue 10 Nov |
| 5 | Bhai Dooj | Tue 10 Nov | Wed 11 Nov |
Source: Drik Panchang; Wikipedia’s Diwali listing; DoPT holiday order, 3 July 2025.
The main date is not in dispute. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), which sets holidays for India’s central government offices, lists Diwali (Deepavali) on Sunday 8 November 2026 in its order of 3 July 2025. The same order allows offices in states that celebrate Deepavali on Naraka Chaturdashi to close on that day instead, if the state government does so.
Several state holiday lists also mark Monday 9 November as an extra Deepavali holiday, including Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, according to the holiday tracker PublicHolidays.in. Check your own state’s notice.
Why is Diwali so late in 2026?
Start with last year. Diwali 2025 fell on 20 October. A lunar year of 12 months lasts about 354 days, so a calendar that only counted moons would have put Diwali 2026 around 9 or 10 October, roughly 11 days earlier.
Instead it lands a full lunar month later, on 8 November. That month is Adhik Maas.
The Hindu calendar is lunisolar. Its months follow the Moon, from one new moon to the next, about 29.5 days. Its year has to stay in step with the Sun, because festivals are tied to seasons and harvests. Twelve lunar months come to about 354 days. The solar year is about 365 days. The gap of roughly 11 days a year adds up to a whole month in about 2.7 years.
When that happens, the calendar inserts an extra month. On average this comes every 32.5 months, according to standard references on the Hindu calendar. In 2026 the extra month was Adhik Jyeshtha, which ran from 17 May to 15 June. Festival calendars from SmartPuja and HinduPad give the same dates.
Everything after it moved. Diwali in 2027 swings back the other way, to Friday 29 October, because no extra month falls between the two festivals.
How Adhik Maas works
The rule for choosing the extra month is astronomical, not a decision by any committee.
The Sun moves through the 12 signs of the zodiac (rashis) over a year. Each move into a new sign is called a sankranti. In a normal lunar month, the Sun makes one such move. Occasionally a lunar month starts and ends without the Sun changing sign at all, because a lunar month (29.5 days) is a little shorter than the Sun’s time in one sign (about 30.4 days on average).
That month with no sankranti becomes the extra month. It takes the name of the month that follows it, with “Adhik” (extra) in front. The next one is called “Nija” (the regular one). So 2026 had Adhik Jyeshtha, then Nija Jyeshtha from 16 June.
Adhik Maas is also called Mala Maas or Purushottam Maas. Many families avoid weddings, housewarmings and similar ceremonies during it.
There is a limit on where it can fall. An extra month never lands between Margashirsha and Magha (roughly mid-November to February), when the Sun moves fastest through the zodiac. Wikipedia’s Adhika masa entry notes that an extra Kartika, the month of Diwali itself, happened only once between 1901 and 2150, in 1963.
Why do puja timings differ by city?
The date is the same across India this year. The clock time is not.
Two things set the time of Lakshmi Puja. The first is the tithi, the lunar day. Amavasya, the new moon tithi, begins at 11:27 AM India time (05:57 GMT) on 8 November and ends at 12:31 PM (07:01 GMT) on 9 November, according to Drik Panchang. That moment is the same everywhere on Earth.
The second is local sunset. Lakshmi Puja is done in Pradosh Kaal, the window of about two and a half hours after sunset, and sunset varies by city. So does the puja window.
| City | Lakshmi Puja window, 8 Nov 2026 | Local time zone |
|---|---|---|
| New Delhi | 5:54 PM to 7:50 PM | IST (GMT+5:30) |
| Chennai | 6:06 PM to 8:09 PM | IST (GMT+5:30) |
| London | 4:35 PM to 6:12 PM | GMT |
| New York | 5:04 PM to 6:52 PM | EST (GMT-5) |
Source: Drik Panchang city timings, accessed 26 October 2026.
Other almanacs publish slightly different windows. Shubh Panchang and Dekho Panchang each give their own Delhi times, because they use different sunset calculations or a different rule for the auspicious window. For a family puja, the local temple or the almanac your family already follows is the usual reference.
Diwali 2026 in the UK, US, Singapore, Malaysia and Nepal
Outside India the main night is also Sunday 8 November, but the second day can move.
In the UK and US, Naraka Chaturdashi falls on Saturday 7 November, a day ahead of India. The reason is the time difference. A tithi is counted from the one present at local sunrise, and by sunrise on 8 November in London or New York, Amavasya has already begun.
- UK: Lakshmi Puja on Sunday 8 November; Naraka Chaturdashi on Saturday 7 November.
- US: Lakshmi Puja on Sunday 8 November; Naraka Chaturdashi on Saturday 7 November. Diwali is not a federal holiday.
- Singapore: Deepavali is a public holiday on Sunday 8 November. The Ministry of Manpower says Monday 9 November is a public holiday for workers whose rest day falls on 8 November.
- Malaysia: Deepavali on Sunday 8 November, with Monday 9 November as the replacement holiday in most states, according to published 2026 holiday lists. Sarawak does not list Deepavali as a public holiday.
- Nepal (Tihar): The five-day Tihar festival runs from Saturday 7 November (Kaag Tihar) to Wednesday 11 November (Bhai Tika), with Laxmi Puja on Sunday 8 November, by Nepali calendar listings for Kartik 2083 BS. Nepal’s official calendar committee announces the final auspicious times.
Many Tamil communities, in India and abroad, celebrate Deepavali on the morning of Naraka Chaturdashi. In Singapore and Malaysia, which are two and a half hours ahead of India, that morning also falls on 8 November this year.
How the panchang decides the day
A panchang is a Hindu almanac. It tracks five things each day, and the most important one for festivals is the tithi.
A tithi is the time it takes the Moon to gain 12 degrees on the Sun in the sky. There are 30 in a lunar month. Because the Moon’s speed varies along its orbit, tithis vary in length. Using Drik Panchang’s New Delhi figures, this year’s Amavasya lasts 25 hours 4 minutes, the next tithi (Pratipada) 25 hours 29 minutes, and the one after that (Dwitiya) 25 hours 53 minutes.
Tithis start at any hour, so they rarely line up with calendar days. Each festival therefore has a rule about which part of the day the tithi must cover.
- Lakshmi Puja needs Amavasya during Pradosh Kaal, after sunset. In 2026 Amavasya covers the evening of 8 November everywhere in India, so there is no argument.
- Govardhan Puja needs Pratipada in the early morning. Pratipada begins at 12:31 PM on 9 November, after that morning has passed, so Drik Panchang moves the puja to the morning of 10 November and leaves 9 November as a gap day. Calendars that simply count “the day after Diwali” print 9 November.
- Bhai Dooj needs Dwitiya in the afternoon (aparahna). Dwitiya begins at 2:00 PM on 10 November and ends at 3:53 PM on 11 November, so Drik Panchang’s New Delhi listing places the tika ceremony on 11 November, from 1:10 PM to 3:20 PM.
Why some years have two Diwali dates
When a tithi starts or ends close to sunrise or sunset, two honest calculations can give two answers.
In 2025, Amavasya began at 3:44 PM on 20 October and ended at 5:54 PM on 21 October in Delhi, according to Drik Panchang. It was present for the whole evening of the 20th, and for only a few minutes after sunset on the 21st. Most of India celebrated on 20 October. Maharashtra and Manipur listed 21 October, PublicHolidays.in’s state tables show.
There is also a naming difference that confuses many readers. India uses two month systems. In the amanta system, used in much of western and southern India, a month ends on the new moon. In the purnimanta system, common in the north, a month ends on the full moon. The same Diwali night is the last day of Ashvin in an amanta calendar and the middle of Kartika in a purnimanta one. Both describe the same moon.
The DoPT order adds a third label. It gives Diwali 2026 as “Kartika 17”, a date in India’s national Saka calendar, which follows the Sun and is a separate system again.
Watch for: Your city’s timings in a local panchang or at your temple, since the Pradosh Kaal window shifts with sunset. Your state’s holiday notice for Monday 9 November. And next year’s date: Diwali 2027 falls on Friday 29 October.
