Easter moves every year because it follows the moon: it is the Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon on or after the spring equinox, fixed by the church at March 21. Enter a year and the calculator gives both Easters and the feasts that are counted from the Western one.
Example: 2026. Western Easter is April 5; Orthodox Easter is April 12, one week later. Good Friday is April 3, Easter Monday April 6, Ascension Day May 14 and Pentecost May 24.
Easter dates 2025–2040
| Year | Western Easter | Orthodox Easter | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | April 20 | April 20 | same day |
| 2026 | April 5 | April 12 | 1 week |
| 2027 | March 28 | May 2 | 5 weeks |
| 2028 | April 16 | April 16 | same day |
| 2029 | April 1 | April 8 | 1 week |
| 2030 | April 21 | April 28 | 1 week |
| 2031 | April 13 | April 13 | same day |
| 2032 | March 28 | May 2 | 5 weeks |
| 2033 | April 17 | April 24 | 1 week |
| 2034 | April 9 | April 9 | same day |
| 2035 | March 25 | April 29 | 5 weeks |
| 2036 | April 13 | April 20 | 1 week |
| 2037 | April 5 | April 5 | same day |
| 2038 | April 25 | April 25 | same day |
| 2039 | April 10 | April 17 | 1 week |
| 2040 | April 1 | May 6 | 5 weeks |
The feasts that follow Easter
| Day | Counted from Easter Sunday | 2026 | 2027 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ash Wednesday (start of Lent) | 46 days before | February 18 | February 10 |
| Palm Sunday | 7 days before | March 29 | March 21 |
| Good Friday | 2 days before | April 3 | March 26 |
| Easter Monday | 1 day after | April 6 | March 29 |
| Ascension Day | 39 days after (a Thursday) | May 14 | May 6 |
| Pentecost / Whit Sunday | 49 days after | May 24 | May 16 |
| Corpus Christi | 60 days after (a Thursday) | June 4 | May 27 |
Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays in many countries (the UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, much of Europe), so the Easter date also moves school holidays and long weekends. In the US, Easter Monday is not a federal holiday.
How the calculation works
The Western date comes from the “anonymous Gregorian algorithm” published in Jean Meeus’s Astronomical Algorithms: a few integer divisions of the year that reproduce the church tables for every year from 1583. The Orthodox date uses Meeus’s Julian computus, then adds the gap between the two calendars – 13 days from 1900 to 2099, 14 days from 2100. The calculator works for any year from 1583 to 4099; the tests check it against published dates, including March 22 in 2285 and April 25 in 2038.
To count down to Easter, use days until. The calculation runs on your device, and once zet4u is saved there it works offline.
Frequently asked questions
When is Easter in 2027?
Western Easter is on Sunday, March 28, 2027, and Orthodox Easter on Sunday, May 2, 2027 – five weeks apart, the widest gap the two calendars produce. Good Friday 2027 is March 26.
How is the date of Easter decided?
Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21 – but the moon and the date are those of a church table (the computus), not the real sky. That is why the date can be worked out for any year with a short formula, and why it can differ by a day from what an astronomer would say.
Why are Western and Orthodox Easter on different dates?
Both use the same rule, but the Orthodox churches apply it in the old Julian calendar, which is now 13 days behind the Gregorian one, and with the old moon tables. Most years Orthodox Easter is one or five weeks later; in some years (2025, 2028, 2031, 2034) they fall on the same day.
What is the earliest and latest possible date of Easter?
Western Easter falls between March 22 and April 25. It was last on March 22 in 1818 and will next be in 2285; the latest date, April 25, comes in 2038. Orthodox Easter, in Gregorian dates, falls between April 4 and May 8 in this century.
Sources
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