WorldTimePortal
New Year’s Day: dates, traditions and planning
When is New Year’s Day 2027?
New Year’s Day 2027 is Friday, 1 January, in ISO week 53 of 2026. That may look surprising: the first days of January can belong to the final ISO week of the previous year when the week started in December. The date table above shows the ISO week for each year, so the numbering is never ambiguous.
The date never moves — 1 January has opened the Gregorian calendar year since the calendar was introduced. What changes is the weekday, and with it the substitute day off. When 1 January falls on a Saturday or Sunday, many countries move the public holiday to the following Monday.
New Year’s Eve and the midnight moment
The celebration begins on New Year’s Eve, 31 December, and the new year arrives at midnight local time. Because midnight happens at different instants around the world, the new year reaches Sydney hours before London, and London hours before New York. The countdown on this page targets midnight at the start of 1 January in the time zone you select.
If you want to wish someone happy new year at their midnight, choose their time zone rather than your own. The world clock and meeting planner help you line up the exact moment across cities.
Is New Year’s Day a public holiday?
Yes, in most of the countries covered here. It is a US federal holiday, a UK bank holiday, a Canadian statutory holiday and an Australian public holiday. When it falls at a weekend, a substitute weekday is normally given — in 2027, 1 January is a Friday, so the holiday falls on the day itself in these countries.
In India, 1 January is widely observed and appears on many employer and state holiday lists, but it is not one of the three national gazetted holidays. Check the applicable government, state or employer list rather than assuming a day off.
How the world marks the day
Fireworks at midnight, countdowns in city centres, resolutions for the year ahead and a quiet first morning are familiar traditions in many places. Some cultures celebrate a different new year as well — Lunar New Year, Nowruz and Rosh Hashanah follow their own calendars and fall on other dates.
This page covers the civil Gregorian new year on 1 January. For the Lunar New Year dates in our country calendars, see the 2026 and 2027 calendar pages.
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.
