Easter Date Calculator

Easter 2026 has passed. It fell on Sunday, April 5 in the Western churches and Sunday, April 12 in the Orthodox churches. The dates to plan around now are in 2027. Western Easter comes first on Sunday, March 28, 2027, and Orthodox Easter follows five weeks later on Sunday, May 2, 2027.

The calculator above counts down the exact days remaining until each date for any year you enter. The full table of upcoming dates is in the next section.

Every date below is computed with the algorithms described on this page and cross-checked against published tables (source: Wikipedia's List of dates for Easter). The "Same day?" column marks the coincidence years when both traditions celebrate on one Sunday.

The two Easters coincide in 2025, 2028, 2031, and 2034. In all other years shown, Orthodox Easter falls one to five weeks after Western Easter.

The rule: first Sunday after the Paschal full moon

Easter is the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon. The Paschal full moon is the ecclesiastical full moon that falls on or after March 21, which the churches fix as the date of the March equinox. Note the word ecclesiastical. This is a calculated moon from church tables, not the moon you see in the sky, and it can differ from the astronomical full moon by a day or two.

The Gregorian computus, step by step

Western churches use the Gregorian computus, published anonymously in Nature in 1876 and popularized by the astronomer Jean Meeus. For any year from 1583 onward, with every division rounded down, the steps are:

1. 1.a = year mod 19. The year's remainder in the 19-year Metonic cycle.
2. 2.b = year / 100 rounded down, c = year mod 100. The century and the year within it.
3. 3.d = b / 4 rounded down, e = b mod 4. Leap-year corrections for the century.
4. 4.f = (b + 8) / 25 rounded down.
5. 5.g = (b - f + 1) / 3 rounded down. The lunar correction.
6. 6.h = (19a + b - d - g + 15) mod 30. Days from March 21 to the Paschal full moon.
7. 7.i = c / 4 rounded down, k = c mod 4.
8. 8.l = (32 + 2e + 2i - h - k) mod 7. The push forward to Sunday.
9. 9.m = (a + 11h + 22l) / 451 rounded down. Almost always 0, and 1 in rare correction years.
10. 10.month = (h + l - 7m + 114) / 31 rounded down, where 3 means March and 4 means April.
11. 11.day = ((h + l - 7m + 114) mod 31) + 1.

Worked example: Easter 2026

For 2026 the steps give a = 12, b = 20, c = 26, d = 5, e = 0, f = 1, g = 6, h = 12, i = 6, k = 2, l = 2, m = 0. Then month = (12 + 2 + 114) / 31 rounded down = 4, and day = (128 mod 31) + 1 = 5. Easter Sunday 2026 was April 5. The golden number is a + 1 = 13, the epact is 11, and the Paschal full moon fell on April 2, three days before Easter Sunday.

The Orthodox calculation

Orthodox churches reckon Easter in the older Julian calendar, using Meeus's Julian algorithm. With a = year mod 4, b = year mod 7, and c = year mod 19, compute d = (19c + 15) mod 30 and e = (2a + 4b - d + 34) mod 7. The Julian month is (d + e + 114) / 31 rounded down and the Julian day is ((d + e + 114) mod 31) + 1. For 2026 this gives a = 2, b = 3, c = 12, d = 3, e = 5, or March 30 in the Julian calendar. Add the 13 days by which the Julian calendar currently trails the Gregorian calendar to reach Sunday, April 12, 2026. For background on both algorithms, see Wikipedia's article on the date of Easter.

Both Easters follow the same rule, the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon. They differ because the two traditions reckon that moon and that Sunday in different calendars. Western churches use the Gregorian calendar, in civil use since October 1582. Orthodox churches use the Julian calendar for the reckoning, even where they use the Gregorian calendar in daily life, and then read the result as a Gregorian date.

The Julian calendar currently trails the Gregorian calendar by 13 days, so the Orthodox Paschal full moon usually lands later and the Sunday after it lands later too. Western Easter can fall on 35 possible dates from March 22 to April 25. Orthodox Easter, read in Gregorian dates, falls from April 4 to May 8. The gap ranges from zero in coincidence years like 2025 and 2028 to five weeks, as in 2027 and 2032.

Easter always falls on a Sunday, by definition. If you want to check the weekday of any Easter date in the table above, our day of week calculator confirms it in one step.

• Computus. The calculation of Easter's date, from the Latin computus paschalis, Easter computation.
• Paschal full moon. The ecclesiastical full moon on or after March 21. For 2026 it was April 2.
• Golden number. The year's position in the 19-year Metonic cycle, computed as (year mod 19) + 1. For 2026 it is 13.
• Epact. The moon's age on January 1, in days. For 2026 it is 11.
• Metonic cycle. The 19-year cycle in which 235 lunar months very nearly equal 19 solar years, so the moon's phases repeat on nearly the same calendar dates.

Once Easter Sunday is fixed, the other movable feasts are simple day counts from it. The table below uses Western Easter 2026, which was April 5.

To count forward or backward from any Easter date yourself, use our date calculator to add or subtract days from the date.