Mardi Gras 2026 has already happened. It was Tuesday, 17 February 2026, 192 days ago. This page is kept whichever side of today the date falls on: the date and the rule behind it are worth looking up either way. For the year after this one see Mardi Gras 2027, and for the always-current countdown see the next Mardi Gras.
Mardi Gras 2026 is Tuesday, 17 February 2026
Mardi Gras 2026 fell on Tuesday, 17 February 2026, which was 192 days before 28 August 2026. That is 27 weeks and 3 days, or 135 working days once Saturdays, Sundays and the US federal holidays in between are taken out — the figure that matters if you are counting delivery lead time or a work schedule rather than sleeps. The date is 2026-02-17 in ISO form and 2/17/2026 in the US format, it falls in ISO week 8 of 2026, and it is day 48 of 365.
How the date of Mardi Gras is decided
Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday and forty-seven days before Easter.
That makes it a computed date: there is no fixed day and no simple weekday rule, so it has to be worked out from a formula or a calendar of its own each year. In 2026 it works out as Tuesday 17 February.
Mardi Gras is an observance rather than a federal holiday. Offices, banks and schools stay open unless an individual employer chooses otherwise, and it counts as an ordinary business day in every calculator here. Only the eleven federal holidays are treated as non-working days — the list and the reasoning are on the holiday sources page.
Mardi Gras in the years after 2026
| Year | Date | Day | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2027 | 9 February 2027 | Tuesday | Mardi Gras 2027 |
| 2028 | 29 February 2028 | Tuesday | Mardi Gras 2028 |
| 2029 | 13 February 2029 | Tuesday | Mardi Gras 2029 |
Both the date and the weekday move, because the rule is not tied to either.
Every convention used above — whether the start date counts, how month ends are clamped, which holidays close an office — is written out on the methodology page, including how we count the 135 working days above.