How many days until Black Friday?
A live countdown to the next Black Friday. The date is derived, not stored: this page finds the fourth Thursday in November and adds a day.
Live countdown
How this date is worked out
Black Friday is the day after United States Thanksgiving, which is itself the fourth Thursday in November. Two chained rules, no stored dates. The result always falls between 24 and 28 November — and always on a Friday, which is worth confirming in the table above if you have ever seen a countdown page claim otherwise.
Where the name comes from
Not, despite the story you will hear every year, from retailers moving into the black. The evidence points to Philadelphia in the 1950s and 1960s, where police used "Black Friday" for the traffic chaos and crowds of the day after Thanksgiving, made worse by the Army-Navy football game that weekend. Local retailers disliked the name and tried without success to rebrand it Big Friday. The accounting explanation appears later, in the early 1980s, as a positive reinterpretation once the term had spread nationally — a textbook back-formation.
What the day has become
- Cyber Monday was coined in 2005 by Shop.org, who noticed a spike in online orders on the Monday after the holiday, when people returned to fast office internet connections. It is the Monday four days after Thanksgiving.
- The single day is now a season. Major retailers open promotions in early November and run them through Cyber Monday, which has blunted the significance of the specific date without removing it.
- It has been widely exported. The United Kingdom, Germany, France, Brazil, Australia, India and many other markets now run Black Friday sales despite having no Thanksgiving to attach them to — so the date still comes from the American rule.
- Thursday opening receded. The mid-2010s push to open stores on Thanksgiving evening drew enough criticism that many large chains publicly reversed it, and the emphasis has moved back to online.
Using the countdown to plan
Because Thanksgiving moves within a seven-day window, so does Black Friday, and the number of shopping days between it and Christmas varies by a week from year to year. That single week is the reason retail calendars are planned around the rule rather than a fixed date. If you want the exact number of days between Black Friday and Christmas in any given year, take the date from the table above and put it into the date difference calculator — and remember to decide whether you want the end date counted.
The next six Black Fridays
Derived from the Thanksgiving rule each time this page loads:
| Year | Date | Day of the week | Days from today |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calculating… | |||
Questions people ask
Is Black Friday always in November?
Yes. It follows Thanksgiving, which is always the fourth Thursday in November, so Black Friday falls between 24 and 28 November inclusive and is always a Friday.
Why is it called Black Friday?
From Philadelphia police slang of the 1950s and 1960s for the traffic and crowds after Thanksgiving. The "retailers move into the black" explanation is a later and more flattering invention.
When is Cyber Monday?
The Monday after Thanksgiving, four days after Black Friday. Use the custom countdown if you want a live clock for it.
Does this countdown need updating?
No. It chains two rules — the fourth Thursday in November, plus one day — and evaluates them fresh on every visit.
Count down to something else
Every page below works the same way and stays correct on its own. For a date of your own — a holiday, an exam, a due date, a launch — use the countdown and date difference calculator.