When is Remembrance Sunday?

Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day, 2026 to 2035

How the day is set

After the First World War, the King asked for a two-minute silence at 11am on 11 November 1919, and Armistice Day was kept on the date itself between the wars. After 1945 the commemoration was extended to the dead of the Second World War and moved to a Sunday, so that the country could attend services without stopping work. Remembrance Sunday has been the second Sunday in November since then. The guidance published for 2026 confirms the date, the time of the silence and the arrangements at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, where the King, political leaders, the armed forces and veterans lay wreaths.

The week of remembrance

The Royal British Legion's poppy appeal runs from late October, and the Festival of Remembrance is held at the Royal Albert Hall on the Saturday evening before Remembrance Sunday. Local services take place at war memorials in almost every town and village, usually starting before 11am so that the silence can be kept together. In 2026 the week starts a few days after Bonfire Night; when the two weeks overlap, some councils ask for fireworks to be kept away from the times of services.

At work and at school

Employers are not required to stop work for the Armistice Day silence, but many do, and schools usually mark it with an assembly. For those working on the Sunday, the silence is broadcast on radio and television at 11am. The simulator under the summary gives Remembrance Sunday and the weekday of Armistice Day for any year, and the gap between them, which is never more than three days. The clocks go back two to three weeks before, so the services are held in the season's first cold, short days.

Other days of remembrance

Armed Forces Day, on the last Saturday in June, celebrates serving personnel and veterans. Holocaust Memorial Day is held on 27 January each year, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. VE Day, 8 May, and VJ Day, 15 August, are marked on major anniversaries with national events, as in 2020 when the early May bank holiday was moved to Friday 8 May. None of these is a bank holiday in a normal year.

In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, national services are held at their own memorials, in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, at the same hour as the ceremony in Whitehall, and local parades often include cadets, scouts and veterans' associations.