How many days until Thanksgiving?
A live countdown to United States Thanksgiving. The date is not stored on this page — it is computed from the rule, the fourth Thursday in November, every time you load it.
Live countdown
How this date is worked out
Thanksgiving in the United States is the fourth Thursday in November. That is a rule, not a date, so this page computes it: find the first Thursday of November, add three weeks. The result falls between 22 and 28 November inclusive, and the countdown rolls to next year automatically the day after.
One trap catches a lot of calendars and a lot of code: the fourth Thursday is not the same as the last Thursday. In any November that contains five Thursdays — which happens whenever the month begins on a Thursday — the last Thursday falls on the 29th or 30th, a week after the holiday. 2029 is one such year: Thanksgiving is 22 November, while the last Thursday of the month is the 29th. Anything that resolves "last Thursday" will be a week out.
Why the fourth Thursday
The holiday was irregular for most of its history. Days of thanksgiving were proclaimed ad hoc by colonies, states and presidents; Abraham Lincoln's 1863 proclamation established an annual observance on the last Thursday in November, and that became the settled custom for the next seventy-five years.
It broke in 1939. That November had five Thursdays, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, lobbied by retailers who wanted a longer Christmas shopping season, moved the holiday to the fourth Thursday. The country split: some states adopted the new date, others kept the old one, and for three years there were effectively two Thanksgivings, nicknamed Franksgiving. Congress settled it with a joint resolution establishing the fourth Thursday in law, signed in December 1941 and effective from 1942. That is the rule this page implements.
The days around it
- Black Friday is the day after, and the unofficial start of the Christmas shopping season. It has its own countdown.
- Small Business Saturday follows, and Cyber Monday — a term coined in 2005 — is the Monday after the holiday.
- The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is consistently one of the busiest travel days in the United States, by road and by air.
- Canadian Thanksgiving is a separate holiday on the second Monday in October, roughly six weeks earlier, and reflects an earlier harvest at higher latitudes.
Planning around the date
Because the holiday can fall anywhere in a seven-day window, the gap between Thanksgiving and Christmas varies by a full week from year to year — which is why retailers care so much about the date and why a late Thanksgiving compresses the shopping season. If you are booking travel, the table above gives the exact dates; for the number of working days between the holiday and a deadline, use the date calculator, which also reports weekdays and weekend days for any range.
The next six Thanksgivings
Each date below is computed by finding the fourth Thursday of that November:
| Year | Date | Day of the week | Days from today |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calculating… | |||
Questions people ask
Is Thanksgiving the fourth or the last Thursday in November?
The fourth, fixed in federal law since 1942. In years where November has five Thursdays the two are different, and the fourth Thursday is the correct one. 2029 is a good example: the holiday is 22 November, but the last Thursday is the 29th.
What is the earliest and latest Thanksgiving can be?
22 November at the earliest and 28 November at the latest. The seven-day spread is why the run-up to Christmas is a week shorter in some years than in others.
Does this page need updating each November?
No. It never stores a date. Every load computes the fourth Thursday of the relevant November from scratch, so it is as correct in 2040 as it is today.
Is this Canadian Thanksgiving?
No. Canadian Thanksgiving is the second Monday in October, about six weeks earlier. You can count down to it with the custom countdown.
When is Black Friday?
The day immediately after Thanksgiving, so between 23 and 29 November. There is a dedicated countdown that derives it from the same rule.
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.