the Spring Equinox 2026 has already happened. It was Friday, 20 March 2026, 161 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 the Spring Equinox 2027, and for the always-current countdown see the next the Spring Equinox.
the Spring Equinox 2026 is Friday, 20 March 2026
the Spring Equinox 2026 fell on Friday, 20 March 2026, which was 161 days before 28 August 2026. That is exactly 23 weeks, or 112 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 2026-03-20 in ISO form and 3/20/2026 in the US format, it falls in ISO week 12 of 2026, and it is day 79 of 365.
How the date of the Spring Equinox is decided
The March equinox, when the sun crosses the celestial equator northward. It falls on 19, 20 or 21 March depending on the year and the time zone, and it is an astronomical instant rather than a whole day.
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 Friday 20 March.
the Spring Equinox 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.
the Spring Equinox in the years after 2026
| Year | Date | Day | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2027 | 20 March 2027 | Saturday | the Spring Equinox 2027 |
| 2028 | 20 March 2028 | Monday | the Spring Equinox 2028 |
| 2029 | 20 March 2029 | Tuesday | the Spring Equinox 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 112 working days above.