When Is New Year?
Find out when New Year's Day is. Live countdown to January 1st, day of the week for every year, and New Year traditions worldwide.
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When New Year's Day Falls
New Year's Day is always 1 January, every year. In the upcoming cycle: 1 January 2026 is a Thursday, 1 January 2027 is a Friday, 1 January 2028 is a Saturday (with a substitute bank holiday on Monday 3 January), 1 January 2029 is a Monday, 1 January 2030 is a Tuesday. New Year's Eve is the night before, ending at midnight when the countdown on this page hits zero and rolls forward to the next 1 January.
The countdown updates every second using your local browser timezone. If you are in the UK on New Year's Eve, the counter shows midnight UK; in Sydney it shows midnight Sydney; New York gets midnight Eastern; and so on. Major broadcasters around the world pick up the BBC's London midnight (the Big Ben chimes have been broadcast on radio every New Year's Eve since 1924, with limited exceptions during the Second World War). For watching the global wave, there are dedicated multi-timezone countdown displays that show Sydney first (12 noon UK time), then Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mumbai, London, New York, Honolulu - 24 separate midnights in 24 hours.
New Year Traditions Around the World
Every culture has midnight rituals worth knowing if you are hosting a mixed crowd. In Spain, you eat 12 grapes - one with each chime of midnight - for luck in each month of the year. In Japan, 108 temple bells are rung to cleanse 108 worldly desires; bowls of toshikoshi soba (year-crossing noodles) are eaten just before midnight. In Scotland, Hogmanay involves first-footing: the first person to enter your home after midnight should ideally be a tall dark man bringing coal, salt, shortbread and whisky. In Denmark, people jump off chairs at midnight to 'leap into' the new year.
The most-photographed midnight is New York's Times Square ball drop, which lowers a 6-tonne crystal-covered ball at 11:59 pm EST (4:59 am UK time). London's official fireworks at the South Bank, broadcast on BBC One, run roughly 11 minutes from midnight and cost the London Mayor's office around £2.5 million annually. If you have set goals for the new year, the [New Year Resolution Generator](/new-year-resolution-generator) gives you a starting set across health, career, finance and personal categories; the [Habit Tracker](/habit-tracker) keeps them alive past Quitter's Day in mid-January.
Frequently Asked Questions
What day is New Year's Day 2027?
Friday 1 January 2027, with New Year's Eve on Thursday 31 December 2026. UK pubs and restaurants run a New Year's Eve menu on the Thursday and a quieter New Year's Day lunch on the Friday. The bank holiday is Friday 1 January, so most workplaces close from Thursday 31 December lunchtime.
Is New Year's Day always 1 January?
In every Gregorian-calendar country, yes. Some traditions celebrate a separate cultural new year on a different date: Chinese New Year (late January or February), Persian Nowruz (around 21 March), Diwali (October or November), Rosh Hashanah (September or October). The civil calendar new year is universally 1 January for legal and administrative purposes.
What is Hogmanay?
Hogmanay is the Scottish name for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, marked by first-footing, fireworks, ceilidhs and the singing of Auld Lang Syne. Edinburgh's Hogmanay party draws around 75,000 people and runs for three days, with a torchlight procession on 30 December and the main street party on 31 December. Scotland uniquely has both 1 and 2 January as bank holidays.
Is New Year's Day a UK bank holiday?
Yes. 1 January is a statutory bank holiday across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. If 1 January falls on a Saturday or Sunday, a substitute bank holiday is given on the following Monday everywhere except Scotland, which observes both 1 and 2 January separately and gets full substitute days for each.
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