Guru Nanak Jayanti 2026: date and why it falls on November 24
Guru Nanak Jayanti 2026 is on Tuesday, November 24, the 557th anniversary. Why it is late, why some calendars differ, the rituals and where it is a holiday.
Why it matters
Guru Nanak Jayanti is one of the most important days in the Sikh calendar and a public holiday across India, and its date moves every year with the Moon.
Guru Nanak Jayanti comes 19 days later in 2026 than it did in 2025. Sikhs will mark the 557th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, on Tuesday, November 24, 2026, the full moon of the lunar month of Kartik.
Quick answer: Guru Nanak Jayanti 2026 is on Tuesday, November 24, according to Drik Panchang and India’s central government holiday list. The full-moon day (Purnima) begins at 11:42 p.m. India time on November 23 (18:12 GMT) and ends at 8:23 p.m. on November 24 (14:53 GMT). It is late this year because the Hindu lunisolar calendar added an extra month in 2026.
The festival is also called Gurpurab or Parkash Purab, the day of the Guru’s light. In 2025 it fell on Wednesday, November 5. Most searches for the date turn up November 24 for 2026, but a few calendars and gurdwaras use other dates, and one long-running scholarly dispute says Guru Nanak was not born in Kartik at all.
Why Guru Nanak Jayanti falls on November 24 in 2026
The date follows the Moon. Sikh tradition celebrates Guru Nanak’s birth on Kartik Puranmashi, the full moon of Kartik in the Bikrami calendar, the lunisolar calendar long used across north India. Because a lunar year runs about 11 days shorter than a solar one, the festival moves around the Western calendar from year to year.
Every two to three years, the Bikrami and Hindu calendars insert a 13th month to catch up with the Sun. 2026 was one of those years. The extra month, Adhik Maas, ran from May 17 to June 15, 2026, and it pushed every later festival back by roughly a month from where it would otherwise have landed. The same arithmetic explains why Diwali is so late in 2026 and why Chhath Puja runs November 13 to 16 this year.
| Year | Date | Day | Birth anniversary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | November 5 | Wednesday | 556th |
| 2026 | November 24 | Tuesday | 557th |
| 2027 | November 14 | Sunday | 558th |
Source: Drik Panchang, October 2026 (2025 date also in India’s 2025 holiday listings).
The count is simple. Guru Nanak was born in 1469, so 2026 is the 557th anniversary of his birth.
Is Guru Nanak Jayanti a public holiday in 2026?
In India, yes. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), which sets the holiday calendar for central government staff, lists “Guru Nanak’s Birthday” on Tuesday, November 24, 2026, in its order of July 3, 2025. It is one of 14 holidays that central government offices outside Delhi must observe, alongside days such as Diwali, Christmas and Eid, so federal offices across the country close.
States publish their own lists. Punjab, where most of India’s Sikhs live, has November 24 as a gazetted holiday, according to the 2026 list published by the Accountant General’s office in Punjab. Schools, banks and state offices in other states follow their own state notifications, so the local list is the one to check for a particular office.
Outside India, the day is not a national public holiday in the countries with large Sikh communities, such as the UK, Canada and the US, though gurdwaras there hold services and processions.
Why some calendars show a different date
The confusion has two layers.
The first is a calendar fight. In the 1990s Pal Singh Purewal, who had worked on Sikh dating since the 1960s, designed the Nanakshahi calendar, a solar calendar meant to fix Sikh holy days to the same Western date every year. Its early version placed Guru Nanak’s birth on 1 Vaisakh, or April 14. When the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the elected body that manages historic gurdwaras in Indian Punjab, adopted the calendar in 2003, it kept three dates on the moving lunar system: Guru Nanak’s Gurpurab, Bandi Chhor Divas (which falls with Diwali) and Hola Mohalla. A Tribune critique at the time pointed out that keeping Guru Nanak’s birthday on Kartik Puranmashi defeated the calendar’s own aim of fixed dates.
In 2010 the Akal Takht, the highest seat of Sikh religious authority in Amritsar, approved amendments that tied more dates back to the lunar calendar. The SGPC still publishes its calendar under the Nanakshahi name. Supporters of the 2003 version, known as the “Mool” (original) Nanakshahi calendar, including many gurdwaras abroad, say the change was a return to the Bikrami system. Some groups that follow the original calendar mark Guru Nanak’s birth on April 14 instead.
The second layer is history. Five of the six main janamsakhis, the early life stories of Guru Nanak, place his birth in Vaisakh (April). Only the Bala Janamsakhi gives Kartik. Historians including Karam Singh, who wrote a book-length case for the April date, M.A. Macauliffe and Ganda Singh have favored April 15, 1469. Critics of the Bala Janamsakhi question its reliability, partly because it was written by followers of a breakaway sect. The Kartik date is still the one the Sikh mainstream observes.
None of this changes the November 24 date for most Sikhs. The large celebrations at the Golden Temple in Amritsar and at Nankana Sahib in Pakistan both follow the Kartik full moon.
- 1999: The SGPC first adopts the Nanakshahi calendar, then withdraws it amid objections from religious leaders.
- 2003: The SGPC launches the calendar, with Guru Nanak’s birthday still on the lunar Kartik date.
- 2010: The Akal Takht approves amendments moving more dates back to the lunar system.
How Sikhs observe Guru Nanak Gurpurab
The festival starts two days early. Gurdwaras begin an Akhand Path, an unbroken reading of the whole Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh scripture, by a relay of readers. It takes about 48 hours and is timed to finish on the morning of the Gurpurab, ending with Ardas, the congregational prayer.
In the days before, Prabhat Pheris set off from gurdwaras at dawn. These are small early-morning processions in which the congregation walks through nearby streets singing hymns.
The biggest public event is the Nagar Kirtan, a street procession usually held the day before the Gurpurab. Five men representing the Panj Pyare, the “five beloved ones” of Sikh history, lead it with the Nishan Sahib, the Sikh flag. Behind them the Guru Granth Sahib travels on a decorated float, followed by hymn singers, bands and gatka teams, who perform the Sikh martial art. Volunteers sweep the road ahead and hand out food along the route.
On the day itself, services begin at Amrit Vela, the early hours around 4 a.m. to 5 a.m., with the hymn Asa di Var, then kirtan (hymn singing) and katha (talks on scripture). Langar, the free communal meal, runs all day. Anyone can sit and eat, whatever their religion or background, which is the point: Guru Nanak taught that no one should be ranked by caste. Some gurdwaras continue into the night, with hymns around 1:20 a.m., the hour traditionally linked to his birth. Gurdwaras and homes are lit with lamps and lights.
Who was Guru Nanak?
Guru Nanak was born in 1469 in Rai Bhoi di Talwandi, a village in Punjab now called Nankana Sahib, in Pakistan. His parents were Mehta Kalu and Mata Tripta. He died in 1539 at Kartarpur, the settlement he founded on the Ravi river, also now in Pakistan.
He was the first of the ten Sikh Gurus. He taught devotion to one God (Ik Onkar), the equality of all people and an ordinary working life over renunciation. Sikhs sum up his teaching in three practices: remembering God’s name, earning an honest living and sharing with others. His hymns, including the Japji Sahib that opens the Guru Granth Sahib, form a large part of the scripture. Before he died he named a follower, Bhai Lehna, as his successor, Guru Angad, rather than either of his sons.
Accounts of his long journeys, known as udasis, come mainly from the janamsakhis written after his death. Historians treat many of their details with caution.
Pilgrims to Nankana Sahib in Pakistan
Gurdwara Janam Asthan in Nankana Sahib marks his birthplace and is the focus of the main celebration in Pakistan. Indian Sikhs travel there in groups called jathas, under a 1974 India-Pakistan protocol on visits to religious shrines, crossing on foot at the Attari-Wagah border.
In 2025 the trip nearly did not happen. After the April 2025 attack at Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir and the military strikes that followed in May, India’s Home Ministry first told states it would not permit the jatha, then reversed that decision. The Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi said on October 29, 2025, that it had issued more than 2,100 visas for celebrations from November 4 to 13, 2025. The SGPC said it received visas for 1,796 of the pilgrims it sponsored.
For 2026, no visa figures had been published as of October 28. The SGPC usually collects passports from pilgrims months ahead; in 2025 its deadline was August 4.
The Kartarpur Corridor, the visa-free route that opened in 2019 to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, where Guru Nanak died, has been shut since India suspended it on May 7, 2025. The bilateral agreement behind it has been extended to 2029, but reports through mid-2026 gave no reopening date.
Watch for: the Pakistan High Commission’s visa announcement, usually in the week or two before the Gurpurab, and any Home Ministry decision on the Kartarpur Corridor. The SGPC posts jatha details at sgpc.net.
The next Gurpurab after this one comes earlier again: Sunday, November 14, 2027, the 558th anniversary, as the lunar calendar settles back without an extra month.
