Halloween 2026 falls on Saturday, October 31, 2026. The counter below shows how many days until Halloween in your own time zone. The date never moves, but the weekday does, and 2026 gives Halloween a Saturday for the first time since 2020.
Halloween 2026
That was October 31, 2026.
| Date | Saturday, October 31, 2026 |
|---|---|
| Rule | Fixed date, always October 31 |
| Federal holiday? | No |
| Banks | Open, normal Saturday hours |
| Normal Saturday USPS delivery | |
| Stock market | Closed, as October 31 is a Saturday |
| Clocks change | The following night: daylight saving time ends Sunday, November 1 |
| Next occurrence | Sunday, October 31, 2027 |
What day of the week is Halloween 2026?
Halloween sits on a fixed date, so the only thing that changes year to year is which weekday it lands on. In 2026 it falls on a Saturday. That is the arrangement most communities prefer, because trick-or-treating, parties and events do not collide with a school night or a working morning.
The last Saturday Halloween was 2020 and the next after 2026 will be 2032. Between those, the date cycles forward through the week, with leap years pushing it two days instead of one.
Do the clocks change on Halloween 2026?
There is a scheduling detail specific to 2026 worth knowing. Daylight saving time ends at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, November 1, 2026, which is the night of Halloween itself. Clocks go back one hour, so the night is effectively an hour longer and Sunday morning arrives with sunrise and sunset both an hour earlier by the clock.
In practical terms, anyone out late on Halloween night gains an hour. Anyone with a Sunday morning commitment should set devices to update automatically, since phones and computers handle the change on their own while ovens, car clocks and older watches do not.
What time does Halloween start?
Halloween has no official start time. It is not a public holiday, so no authority sets one, and the calendar day simply runs from midnight to midnight on Saturday, October 31, 2026.
Trick-or-treating in practice begins in the late afternoon or early evening and winds down within a few hours. Some municipalities publish recommended or mandated hours for it, and those vary from town to town, so a local announcement is the only reliable source for a specific area. A Saturday date usually means a longer window than a school night allows.
What is open on Halloween 2026?
Because Halloween is not a public holiday, nothing closes for it. In 2026 the relevant factor is simply that October 31 is a Saturday, so banks keep their usual shortened Saturday hours, the Postal Service delivers, and the stock exchanges are closed for the weekend rather than for the occasion.
Why is Halloween on October 31?
The date is inherited rather than chosen. October 31 is All Hallows’ Eve, the night before All Saints’ Day on November 1, which the Western Church has observed on that date since the ninth century. The name Halloween is a contraction of All Hallows’ Even, using an older word for evening.
Layered underneath is Samhain, the Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, observed at roughly the same point in the calendar. The customs most associated with modern Halloween, including costumes and going door to door, arrived in the United States largely with Irish and Scottish emigration in the nineteenth century and took their current commercial form in the twentieth.
When is Halloween in 2027 and 2028?
Because October 31 is fixed, the weekday advances by one each year and by two across a leap year. Running through the decade, Halloween fell on a Friday in 2025, falls on a Saturday in 2026, moves to a Sunday in 2027 and then jumps to a Tuesday in 2028. The two-day jump reflects the leap day in February 2028.
What are All Saints’ Day and Día de Muertos?
Halloween opens a three-day sequence that is observed far more widely outside the United States than within it. All Saints’ Day falls on Sunday, November 1, 2026 and is a public holiday in Spain, France, Italy, Poland and much of Catholic Europe, where families visit cemeteries rather than go door to door.
All Souls’ Day follows on Monday, November 2. In Mexico the same two days are Día de Muertos, a distinct tradition with its own origins rather than a translation of Halloween. None of the three is a public holiday in the United States, where October 31 carries the whole of the observance.
Related dates
Frequently asked questions
How many days until Halloween?
Halloween 2026 is on Saturday, October 31, 2026. The countdown at the top of this page shows the days remaining in your own time zone.
What day of the week is Halloween 2026?
Saturday. It is the first Saturday Halloween since 2020, and the next one after 2026 is in 2032.
Is Halloween a public holiday in the United States?
No. Halloween is not a federal or state public holiday. Offices, banks and schools follow their normal schedule for that weekday.
Do the clocks change on Halloween 2026?
The clocks change the night of Halloween. Daylight saving time ends at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, November 1, 2026, so clocks go back one hour and that night gains an extra hour.
When is Halloween 2027?
Halloween 2027 falls on Sunday, October 31, 2027.