Ramadan Dates

Ramadan Dates locates the civil Hijri month of Ramadan inside a Gregorian year. It prints the tabular (Kuwaiti-style) start—1 Ramadan—and the civil last day before 1 Shawwal, which is the day before Eid al-Fitr on that same arithmetic calendar. Moon sighting, national fatwas, and local mosque announcements often differ by a day either way. This listing is a planning grid, not a religious ruling and not a substitute for the Islamic date converter when you need an arbitrary Hijri date.

Civil Hijri Ramadan in a Gregorian year

The Islamic calendar is lunar. A Hijri year is about 11 days shorter than a Gregorian year, so Ramadan drifts earlier through the civil seasons over a 33-year cycle. Enter a Gregorian year. The engine walks nearby Hijri years, finds 1 Ramadan whose Gregorian conversion falls in that year, and reports start, end, and the Hijri year number (AH).

Because 12 lunar months do not fill a solar year, a given Gregorian year usually contains one Ramadan start and occasionally can miss a 1 Ramadan if the search window does not land that first day inside January–December. If the tool says no start fell in that civil year, try the previous or next year rather than assuming the code failed.

The end date is the last civil day of Ramadan on the tabular calendar (the day before 1 Shawwal). Fasting days are observed from dawn to sunset; this page does not compute Fajr or Maghrib clock times. Prayer-time apps and local masjid schedules own that job.

Tabular calendar versus sighting

Software tables commonly use the Kuwaiti or similar tabular Islamic calendar: odd months 30 days, even months 29, with leap days on a 30-year cycle. That system is deterministic and good for IT, HR planning spreadsheets, and school-year drafts. Many Muslim communities nevertheless begin Ramadan when the crescent is sighted or when a state authority announces the month. Those announcements frequently land one day before or after the table.

Write “civil/tabular, subject to sighting” on any poster that quotes this page. Do not tell a student the fast “definitely starts Tuesday” if their family follows a Wednesday announcement. Conversely, software logs that must pick one convention should document “tabular Ramadan” so later readers know why a mosque flyer disagrees.

This is not a fatwa, not a hilal committee result, and not an Umm al-Qura official Saudi calendar dump (Umm al-Qura can also differ from both sighting and older tabular schemes). If a workplace policy says “follow the local masjid,” the masjid wins.

What the two dates are for

HR teams use the start date to plan reduced-hour policies, prayer-room load, and cafeteria changes. Schools use both dates to avoid exams at iftar time and to schedule Eid breaks. The civil last day is not Eid; Eid al-Fitr is 1 Shawwal, the next day on this calendar. An “Eid off” policy should look at Shawwal, not at the last fasting day, unless the policy is written that way on purpose.

Travelers crossing the Date Line can begin or end the month on different civil dates from family at home. This tool does not apply location. It only maps tabular Hijri month 9 onto Gregorian Y-M-D. Combine with a zone detector or world clock if a remote team is arguing about “whose tonight.”

Laylat al-Qadr is commonly sought in the last ten nights. Those nights are not listed individually here. Count backward from 1 Shawwal on the same tabular calendar, then still defer to local practice for odd nights.

Worked year examples

Enter 2026. Read the civil start, civil end, AH year, and the day-count from today to the civil start. If the start is already past, the count is days after the civil start, not a remaining-fast counter. Remaining fasting days would need today’s date plus the end date and a sighting adjustment; this page does not claim that remaining count.

Compare two consecutive Gregorian years: the start should walk about 11 days earlier each civil year, wrapping from winter toward autumn toward summer over decades. If a comparison jumps by a month, you may have crossed a year with an unusual tabular leap or you compared sighting flyers rather than table-to-table.

Interfaith offices that also track Passover and Easter should convert each feast on its own page. Lunar Islamic months and lunisolar Nisan are not interchangeable. Pasting a Ramadan start into a Passover field will be wrong even when the dates sit in the same civil month.

Workplace and school notes

US federal law does not make Ramadan a federal holiday. Some employers grant Eid leave as a floating personal day. See holidays 2026 for federal civil holidays that may overlap the month, without treating those holidays as Ramadan.

Exam policies that “avoid Ramadan” need a start and end plus a sighting buffer of a day on each side if the institution serves mixed communities. A single tabular pair without that buffer will disappoint someone every year.

Circle the range on monthly calendars or a yearly calendar 2026 after you label it tabular. Leap-year length of the Gregorian year does not set Hijri month lengths; lunar leap days live on the 30-year tabular cycle instead.

Related tools

Arbitrary Hijri dates: Islamic date converter. Other date math: date tools hub. Civil holiday list: holidays 2026.