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Easter: dates, traditions and planning
When is Easter 2027?
Easter Sunday 2027 falls on 28 March in the Western Christian calendar. Good Friday is two days earlier, on 26 March, and Easter Monday is the following day, 29 March. Those three dates are useful for planning a family gathering or travel, but they do not mean every country gives the same four-day break.
Easter is a moveable feast: it does not stay on one day of March or April. Western Easter Sunday can fall between 22 March and 25 April. Our dates are computed from the Gregorian ecclesiastical rules, rather than copied forward from the previous year or inferred from an astronomical full-moon forecast.
How is the date of Easter calculated?
The familiar explanation is the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. More precisely, the Western church calculation uses an ecclesiastical equinox fixed at 21 March and a tabulated ecclesiastical full moon. These are calendar conventions, not a live measurement of the equinox or Moon over your city.
Many Orthodox churches use a different calendar calculation for Easter. Their Easter Sunday may coincide with the Western date in some years and differ in others. This page explicitly lists Western Easter; do not use its dates as an Orthodox Easter calendar without checking the relevant church’s calendar.
Easter bank holidays and days off
In the UK, Good Friday is a bank holiday across the four nations. Easter Monday is a bank holiday in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but not a nationwide Scottish bank holiday. In the USA, Easter Sunday and Good Friday are not federal holidays, although Good Friday is observed by some states and organisations.
In Canada, Good Friday and Easter Monday arrangements depend on jurisdiction and employment coverage; Quebec has particular rules and federal employees have their own holiday schedule. In Australia, Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays, with Easter Saturday and Sunday coverage differing by state or territory. In India, consult the applicable government, state or employer holiday list rather than assuming the entire Easter weekend is leave.
Easter traditions and school holiday planning
For Christians, Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus and follows Holy Week. Church services, shared meals, decorated eggs and Easter egg hunts are familiar traditions, but their prominence differs among families and communities. The religious date and the customs associated with it are not the same as a statutory entitlement to leave.
Easter school holidays do not have one universal start and end date. Local authorities, schools and universities set their own terms. Use Easter Sunday as an anchor for planning, then check the institution’s published calendar before booking travel. For international calls, remember that northern-hemisphere daylight saving transitions can happen close to Easter.
Explore the 2027 United Kingdom calendar with week numbers for holidays and clock changes. For exact intervals use the date calculator, compare cities in the meeting planner, or set a different event time in the custom countdown. The sunrise and sunset tool helps with outdoor plans.
