When Is the Winter Solstice?
Find out when the winter solstice is this year. The shortest day of the year with countdown, dates for the next 10 years, and solstice facts.
When the Winter Solstice Falls
The winter solstice in 2026 is on Monday 21 December. In 2027 it is Tuesday 21 December, in 2028 Wednesday 20 December (a leap-year shift), in 2029 Friday 21 December. The date alternates between 20 and 21 December year to year because of the calendar drift that the four-year leap cycle partially corrects. The astronomical moment in 2026 is approximately 4:50 pm GMT on 21 December, the instant the sun reaches its lowest point in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere.
This is the shortest day of the year. London gets approximately 7 hours 50 minutes of daylight on the solstice, with sunrise at 8:04 am GMT and sunset at 3:54 pm GMT. Edinburgh gets just 6 hours 58 minutes; Lerwick (Shetland) gets 5 hours 49 minutes. From the solstice onwards, days lengthen until the [Summer Solstice](/when-is-summer-solstice) in late June; this is psychologically what carries people through January, even though the change is barely perceptible for the first two weeks. The 'turning point' feeling is real - days do start getting longer immediately - but you only notice the difference around mid-January.
Yule, Stonehenge and the Solstice Today
Stonehenge holds free public access for the winter solstice sunrise on 21 December each year, with English Heritage typically opening the inner circle from around 7:45 am to 10 am. Crowds are smaller than the summer solstice (around 2,000 to 5,000 people, versus 30,000 in summer) because the weather is cold and the date often clashes with the run-up to Christmas. The Stonehenge alignment is actually optimised for the winter solstice sunset, not sunrise: the heel stone marks the summer solstice sunrise, but the original ceremonial axis points to the winter solstice sunset. Many archaeologists believe the monument was built primarily for winter ceremonies marking the rebirth of the sun.
Yule was the pre-Christian Germanic and Norse mid-winter festival that gave Christianity many of the trappings now associated with Christmas: the Yule log, evergreen decorations, mistletoe, feasting, the goat (now Father Christmas's reindeer-pulled equivalent) and gift-giving. The Christian church adopted 25 December as Christ's birth in the 4th century partly to overlap with these existing winter rituals. The [When Is Christmas](/when-is-christmas) tool tracks the day-of-the-week patterns four days after the solstice; the days lengthen each day from the solstice onwards, and Christmas Day is the first 'noticeably longer' day for most casual observers.
Frequently Asked Questions
What date is the winter solstice 2026?
Monday 21 December 2026. In 2027 it is Tuesday 21 December. In 2028 it shifts to Wednesday 20 December (leap-year drift). The astronomical moment in 2026 is approximately 4:50 pm GMT, when the sun reaches its lowest point above the Northern Hemisphere horizon.
How short is the shortest day of the year?
London gets around 7 hours 50 minutes of daylight; Manchester roughly 7 hours 26 minutes; Edinburgh 6 hours 58 minutes; Inverness 6 hours 35 minutes; Lerwick (Shetland) just 5 hours 49 minutes. North of Lerwick (such as Tromso in Norway) the sun does not rise at all on the solstice; this is called polar night and lasts for several weeks above the Arctic Circle.
Is the winter solstice the start of winter?
It is the astronomical first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. The Met Office uses meteorological seasons: winter runs 1 December to 28 February. So depending on definition, winter starts in early December or in late December. Coldest weather actually arrives later still - January and early February are climatologically the coldest weeks in the UK, not December.
Why does Stonehenge align with the winter solstice?
Stonehenge's central axis is aligned to the winter solstice sunset (and the opposite summer solstice sunrise). Many archaeologists argue this means the monument was built primarily for winter ceremonies marking the sun's rebirth. The Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland, built around 3200 BC, is even more dramatically aligned: the dawn sunlight fills the inner chamber for around 17 minutes on each winter solstice morning.
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