When does Lent start?

Ash Wednesday and Easter, 2026 to 2035

The forty days

The forty days recall the forty days Jesus spent fasting in the desert. In the early Church the length of the fast varied; the custom of starting it on a Wednesday, so that forty weekdays and Saturdays are counted before Easter, became fixed in the Western Church by the seventh century. Because Easter moves, so does the whole season: Ash Wednesday can fall from 4 February to 10 March. Easter is set by the tables in the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, and the engine of this site counts back from it.

Holy Week in 2027

On Maundy Thursday the King distributes Maundy money to pensioners in a service held each year in a different cathedral or abbey, a tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages.

Lent and other fasts

In some years Lent overlaps with Ramadan, the month of fasting in Islam, which moves about eleven days earlier each year. In 2026 and 2027 the two overlapped by several weeks, which many schools and workplaces noted for their planning. The Ramadan page gives its expected dates. The simulator under the summary gives the start of Lent and the count of its days for any year, and Pancake Day is always the day before.

Giving something up

Many people mark Lent by giving up a food or a habit for the forty days, chocolate, alcohol and social media being among the most common, or by taking something on, such as volunteering or daily reading. Some churches encourage giving the money saved to charity. Fasting practice in the Church of England is a matter of personal choice. In the Roman Catholic Church, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of fasting and abstinence from meat for adults, and Fridays in Lent are days of abstinence.

Lent ends with the celebrations of Easter. The Sundays within Lent keep their own character: the fourth, Mothering Sunday, has become Mother's Day in the UK.

The simulator under the summary gives Ash Wednesday, the length of Lent and the Sundays it contains for any year to 2035, with Easter Sunday at the end.