Thanksgiving 2026 date: why it is always the fourth Thursday
Thanksgiving 2026 is Thursday, November 26. How Lincoln, Roosevelt and a 1941 law fixed the fourth Thursday, plus Canada and all dates to 2035.
Why it matters
Thanksgiving moves every year, and its date sets the start of the busiest travel and shopping weekend in the US. Knowing the rule lets you plan years ahead.
US Thanksgiving 2026 falls on Thursday, November 26, and Black Friday on November 27. The date moves every year because federal law ties the holiday to a weekday, not a number: Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November, a rule Congress wrote in 1941 after a president tried to move it.
Quick answer: Thanksgiving 2026 in the United States is Thursday, November 26. It is always the fourth Thursday of November, so it can fall on any date from November 22 to November 28. Canada’s Thanksgiving is the second Monday of October, which in 2026 was October 12.
That one-word choice, “fourth” rather than “last,” is the whole story. For most of its history the holiday sat on the last Thursday of the month. The switch came out of a fight over Christmas shopping during the Great Depression.
When is Thanksgiving 2026?
Thursday, November 26, 2026. November 1, 2026 is a Sunday, so the month’s Thursdays are the 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th. The fourth is also the last, which means 2026 is one of the years when the old rule and the current rule give the same answer.
The rest of the long weekend follows from that date:
- Black Friday: November 27, 2026
- Cyber Monday: November 30, 2026
- Christmas Day: 28 days after Black Friday
The law behind it is short. Title 5 of the US Code, section 6103, lists the eleven legal public holidays for federal employees, and the entry reads “Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday in November.”
Why is Thanksgiving always on a Thursday?
Because Abraham Lincoln picked one. Harvest feasts and days of thanks were common in the colonies and early states, and George Washington declared a national day of thanksgiving for November 26, 1789. But dates varied by state and by year until the Civil War.
The push for a single national day came largely from Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, who wrote about it for decades. The National Park Service, which runs the Lincoln Home site in Springfield, Illinois, dates her editorials on the subject to 1827 and her letters to presidents to 1846. On September 28, 1863, she wrote to Lincoln.
Five days later, on October 3, 1863, Lincoln issued a proclamation asking Americans to “set apart and observe the last Thursday of November” as a day of thanksgiving. Secretary of State William Seward drafted the text; Lincoln signed it. Presidents issued a similar proclamation each autumn after that, and the last Thursday stayed the custom until 1939.
No law required a Thursday until 1941. It was simply the day Lincoln chose, and his successors kept it.
The year Thanksgiving came early: Roosevelt’s 1939 change
November 1939 had five Thursdays. Under the custom, Thanksgiving would fall on November 30, the last day of the month, leaving retailers less than four weeks of Christmas shopping before December 25.
Retail groups asked President Franklin D. Roosevelt to move it. In August 1939 he announced that Thanksgiving would be held a week earlier, on November 23. The move caused confusion, and critics nicknamed it “Franksgiving.”
Governors were free to ignore him, and many did. The count of who did what depends on the source. The National Archives says 32 states followed Roosevelt and 16 kept the last Thursday. The National Conference of State Legislatures, citing The New York Times of the time, puts it at 23 states on the new date, 22 on the old one and three that marked both. Either way, families in neighboring states could sit down to dinner a week apart. Congress settled the matter in 1941.
How Congress fixed the fourth Thursday in 1941
- 3 Oct 1789: George Washington proclaims a national day of thanksgiving for November 26, 1789.
- 28 Sep 1863: Sarah Josepha Hale writes to Abraham Lincoln asking for a national Thanksgiving.
- 3 Oct 1863: Lincoln proclaims the last Thursday of November as a day of thanksgiving.
- Aug 1939: Roosevelt says Thanksgiving will move a week earlier, to November 23, 1939.
- 6 Oct 1941: The House passes a joint resolution making the last Thursday of November the legal Thanksgiving Day.
- 26 Dec 1941: Roosevelt signs the resolution into law.
The detail most retellings skip is that the House version kept the old rule. According to the National Archives, House Joint Resolution 41 originally named the last Thursday in November. It was the Senate that changed the word to “fourth,” which meant that in years with five Thursdays the holiday would still come a week early, as Roosevelt had wanted.
The result was a compromise. Most years the fourth Thursday is the last Thursday and nobody notices. In the years it isn’t, the retailers get their extra week.
Thanksgiving dates for the next 10 years
The table below was worked out from the legal rule (the fourth Thursday of November for the US, the second Monday of October for Canada), and the 2026 to 2030 dates match those published by the Farmers’ Almanac. The last column shows when Thanksgiving would have fallen under Lincoln’s last-Thursday custom.
| Year | US Thanksgiving | Black Friday | Canada Thanksgiving | Old “last Thursday” rule |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Thu Nov 26 | Nov 27 | Mon Oct 12 | Nov 26 |
| 2027 | Thu Nov 25 | Nov 26 | Mon Oct 11 | Nov 25 |
| 2028 | Thu Nov 23 | Nov 24 | Mon Oct 9 | Nov 30 |
| 2029 | Thu Nov 22 | Nov 23 | Mon Oct 8 | Nov 29 |
| 2030 | Thu Nov 28 | Nov 29 | Mon Oct 14 | Nov 28 |
| 2031 | Thu Nov 27 | Nov 28 | Mon Oct 13 | Nov 27 |
| 2032 | Thu Nov 25 | Nov 26 | Mon Oct 11 | Nov 25 |
| 2033 | Thu Nov 24 | Nov 25 | Mon Oct 10 | Nov 24 |
| 2034 | Thu Nov 23 | Nov 24 | Mon Oct 9 | Nov 30 |
| 2035 | Thu Nov 22 | Nov 23 | Mon Oct 8 | Nov 29 |
Source: The Daily Summit calculation from 5 U.S.C. 6103 and the 1957 Canadian proclamation; checked against the Farmers’ Almanac, October 2026.
A simple test tells you which kind of year you are in. November has 30 days, so the weekday of November 1 and November 2 each occur five times. If November starts on a Wednesday or a Thursday, there are five Thursdays, and Thanksgiving comes a week before the month’s last Thursday. That happens in 2028, 2029, 2034 and 2035.
When is Canadian Thanksgiving, and why is it in October?
Canada marks Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October, so it can fall from October 8 to October 14. In 2026 it was Monday, October 12, the same day as Columbus Day in the United States, which federal law also places on the second Monday of October.
Canada’s date settled later than the American one. The first annual national Thanksgiving was held on November 6, 1879, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia, and for years the date was set by proclamation and moved around, at times combined with Armistice Day in November. A proclamation of January 31, 1957 fixed it on the second Monday of October.
The earlier date is often explained by the northern harvest, which finishes sooner. It is a statutory holiday in most provinces, but not a paid public holiday in several Atlantic provinces, including Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
Why the date matters for travel and shopping
Because Thanksgiving is always a Thursday, it gives many Americans a four-day weekend, and the travel and shopping figures for that weekend keep setting records.
For the 2025 holiday period, from Tuesday, November 25 to Monday, December 1, the motoring group AAA forecast a record 81.8 million people would travel at least 50 miles from home, 1.6 million more than the year before. It expected at least 73 million of them to drive and about 6 million to take domestic flights. AAA said the most congested roads before the holiday would be on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, with heavy return traffic on Sunday.
| Thanksgiving 2025 forecast | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Travelers, Nov 25 to Dec 1 | 81.8 million | AAA |
| Traveling by car | at least 73 million | AAA |
| Domestic air travelers | about 6 million | AAA |
| Expected shoppers, Thursday to Cyber Monday | 186.9 million | NRF |
| Planning to shop on Black Friday | 70% | NRF |
Source: AAA newsroom and National Retail Federation, November 2025.
The National Retail Federation (NRF), the main US retail trade group, forecast on November 20, 2025 that 186.9 million people would shop over the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, above the previous record of 183.4 million. Black Friday was the most popular day, with 70% of those surveyed planning to shop on it.
The calendar still shapes those numbers, which is the argument retailers made in 1939. In 2026, Black Friday leaves 28 days of shopping until Christmas. In 2029, with Thanksgiving on November 22, the gap is 32 days. In 2030, with Thanksgiving on November 28, it shrinks to 26.
How to read the Thanksgiving date in future years
Watch for: In 2025, AAA and the NRF released their Thanksgiving forecasts in the second half of November, about a week before the holiday. Those reports, not last year’s figures, will show whether 2026 sets new records.
If you are planning around the holiday, the rule is enough: find the first Thursday of November and add three weeks. In years when November begins on a Wednesday or Thursday, expect a longer gap between Thanksgiving and the end of the month, and a longer run of Black Friday sales.
Other holidays move in similar ways, and for similar reasons. Our guide to why Diwali falls so late in 2026 explains a calendar that shifts by the moon, and the US clock change on November 1 is covered in our explainer on the end of daylight saving time.
