Easter & Holiday Calculator

The date of Easter is determined using the Computus algorithm, a mathematical procedure that identifies the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon on or after March 21 (the fixed date of the vernal equinox in ecclesiastical reckoning). This Easter date calculator uses the Meeus/Jones/Butcher variant of the Computus, which is a well-established sequence of modular arithmetic operations that takes only the year as input. The algorithm accounts for the 19-year Metonic lunar cycle, the solar correction, and the lunar correction to produce the correct date without needing any external astronomical data or calendar tables. It is valid for all years from 1583 onward (the era of the Gregorian calendar) through at least 4099 CE. The entire computation is pure math that executes instantly in your browser.

Easter changes every year because its date is determined by a lunisolar rule rather than the purely solar Gregorian calendar. In 325 CE, the Council of Nicaea established that Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox (March 21). Since the lunar month is approximately 29.5 days and does not divide evenly into a 365.25-day solar year, the "paschal full moon" occurs on a different Gregorian date each year. Combined with the requirement that Easter must fall on a Sunday, the date can range from as early as March 22 to as late as April 25. This makes Easter a "moveable feast" that shifts unpredictably from year to year, which in turn causes all dependent holidays like Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Ascension, and Pentecost to shift as well.

Moveable feasts are Christian liturgical holidays whose dates are not fixed on the calendar but instead are calculated relative to the date of Easter Sunday. Because Easter moves each year, all of these dependent holidays move with it while maintaining fixed offsets. For example, Ash Wednesday is always 46 days before Easter (marking the beginning of Lent), Palm Sunday is 7 days before Easter, Good Friday is 2 days before Easter, Ascension Thursday is 39 days after Easter, Pentecost Sunday is 49 days after Easter, Trinity Sunday is 56 days after Easter, and Corpus Christi is 60 days after Easter. This Easter holiday calculator automatically computes all of these derived dates for any year you enter, saving you the effort of counting days manually on a calendar. The moveable feasts are central to the structure of the Christian liturgical year.

This Easter date calculator currently uses the Gregorian Computus, which determines Western Easter as observed by Roman Catholic and most Protestant denominations. Orthodox Easter (also called Pascha) often falls on a different date because the Eastern Orthodox churches calculate Easter using the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar. The Julian Computus uses the same underlying logic but is applied to the Julian calendar, which is currently 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar. As a result, Orthodox Easter can coincide with Western Easter in some years but falls one, four, or five weeks later in most years. A future update to this tool may add Orthodox Easter support using the Julian Computus algorithm. In the meantime, you can use this tool as a reliable reference for Western Easter and all its associated moveable feasts.

The Meeus/Jones/Butcher algorithm used by this Easter calculator is mathematically valid for all years in the Gregorian calendar era, starting from 1583 CE (the year by which the major Catholic countries had adopted the Gregorian calendar following Pope Gregory XIII's reform in 1582) through at least 4099 CE. The tool enforces this range in its input validation. For years before 1583, the Gregorian calendar was not in use, so the algorithm would produce dates that have no historical meaning. For practical purposes, most users will be interested in recent past years or the near future — for example, checking when Easter falls in 2026, 2027, or any upcoming year for holiday planning, vacation scheduling, or church calendar preparation.

This Easter and holiday calculator derives a comprehensive set of eight major moveable feasts from the computed Easter date. These include: Ash Wednesday (46 days before Easter, marking the start of Lent), Palm Sunday (7 days before Easter, celebrating Jesus's entry into Jerusalem), Good Friday (2 days before Easter, commemorating the crucifixion), Easter Sunday itself (celebrating the resurrection), Ascension Thursday (39 days after Easter, commemorating Jesus's ascension to heaven), Pentecost (49 days after Easter, celebrating the descent of the Holy Spirit), Trinity Sunday (56 days after Easter), and Corpus Christi (60 days after Easter). Each holiday is displayed in a visual timeline with its exact date and day of the week, making it easy to see the entire sequence of observances for any given year.

Yes, this Easter and holiday calculator is completely free to use with no limitations, advertisements, or account requirements. Because the Computus algorithm is pure mathematics — a series of simple arithmetic operations on the year number — it has zero dependencies on external APIs, databases, or astronomical data. Once the page has loaded in your browser, the tool works entirely offline. You can enter any year from 1583 to 4099 and receive instant results even without an internet connection. This makes it one of the fastest and most reliable Easter date calculators available online. There are no server costs associated with the computation, so the tool will remain free permanently.

The Meeus/Jones/Butcher Computus algorithm is a sequence of 10 intermediate calculations using only integer division and modulo operations on the year number. It begins by computing the year's position within the 19-year Metonic lunar cycle (which determines the pattern of full moons), then applies a solar correction for century-length drift and a lunar correction for the accumulated error in the Metonic cycle. These corrections produce the "epact" — the age of the ecclesiastical moon on January 1. From the epact, the algorithm determines the date of the paschal full moon, and finally finds the next Sunday after that date, which is Easter. The entire process requires no lookup tables, no astronomical observations, and no floating-point math. It is elegant, deterministic, and has been verified against published Easter tables for centuries.

The ecclesiastical vernal equinox is fixed at March 21 by convention, dating back to the rules established at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. In reality, the astronomical vernal equinox can fall on March 19, 20, or 21 depending on the year and time zone. The Church chose to fix it at March 21 for computational simplicity and to ensure a universal rule that does not depend on time zone or observatory observations. This means that in rare cases, the ecclesiastical Easter date can differ by one week from what a purely astronomical calculation would produce. For all practical and liturgical purposes, however, the March 21 convention is the universally accepted standard for computing Easter in Western Christianity, and this is the rule implemented by this Easter date calculator.

Absolutely. This Easter and holiday calculator is designed to be a practical planning tool for church administrators, pastors, worship teams, and families who need to know when the major moveable feasts will fall in upcoming years. By entering any future year, you can instantly see the dates of Ash Wednesday (to plan Lenten programs), Palm Sunday, Good Friday (to schedule services and community events), Easter Sunday (for worship planning and venue coordination), Ascension, and Pentecost. The tool also shows the day of the week for each holiday, which is useful for coordinating with work and school schedules. Many churches plan their programming calendar a year or more in advance, and this calculator provides the essential anchor dates needed for that planning process.