How many days until a date?

Days from 1 January to well-known dates in 2027

How the count is made

Each date is turned into a day number, the number of days since a fixed starting point, and the two numbers are subtracted. This avoids the usual mistakes with months of different lengths and with leap years. Your device supplies today's date in your own time zone; the counter then counts whole days, so at any time on a given day the answer is the same. The simulator under the summary gives the weekday and the day of the year for any date, which is useful for checking a deadline written as day 90 or week 12.

The calendar behind it

The UK uses the Gregorian calendar, adopted in 1752 under the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, when Wednesday 2 September was followed by Thursday 14 September. Since then, a year is a leap year when it divides by 4, except for century years not divisible by 400. The counter applies that rule for any date. It is not designed for dates before 1752, when the old Julian calendar applied in Britain and the year began on 25 March.

Working days and holidays

The working days shown are Monday to Friday, without the bank holidays of England and Wales from the GOV.UK list. To count for Scotland or Northern Ireland, or to find the date after a number of working days, use the working days calculator. For counting down to a date with hours and minutes, the event pages such as the Christmas countdown, Easter and the next bank holiday run a live clock.

Counting days in everyday life

Different situations count days differently. An event countdown counts the nights left, so on the day before it there is one day to go. A length of stay usually counts nights too, while a length of leave counts the days off including the first and last. Payment terms such as 30 days from the invoice date usually start the day after the invoice. Legal deadlines have their own rules, often set out in the law or the court rules that apply, and some exclude weekends and bank holidays.

When in doubt, write the deadline as a date rather than a number of days, and check it with the counter: picking the date gives the days to go, and the simulator gives its weekday, which shows at once if it falls at a weekend. Popular targets include birthdays, weddings, exams, due dates, the end of a notice period or the first day of a holiday. For dates that repeat every year, such as Christmas, Easter or the next bank holiday, the event pages keep a live countdown so that you do not have to type the date at all.