What day of hanukkah is it

what day of hanukkah is it

What day of Hanukkah is it is a night-count, not a noon-count. Jewish dates begin at sundown. Hanukkah begins at sundown at the start of 25 Kislev. That evening is the first night. Each following sundown opens the next night, through eight. The daytime that follows a lighting still belongs to that Jewish day until the next sundown. If you only look at a midnight-to-midnight civil date, you can be several hours late or early on the count.

On the Gregorian calendar the first sundown falls in late November or in December. In 2026 the first candles are at sundown on Friday, 4 December, and the eight-night stretch runs until nightfall on Saturday, 12 December. In 2027 the first candles are at sundown on Friday, 24 December, and the stretch runs until nightfall on Saturday, 1 January 2028. Do not reuse 4 December as if it were a fixed anniversary. 25 Kislev is the fixed date. The December number walks.

To answer “what day of Hanukkah is it” today: Find the first sundown of this year’s 25 Kislev in your location. If local now is before that sundown, it is not yet Hanukkah. If local now is after that sundown, count how many sundowns have occurred, from one through eight.

If eight sundowns have passed and nightfall on the last day has passed, Hanukkah has ended. Example for 2026, using civil evenings: sundown 4 December is night 1; 5 December night 2; 6 December night 3; 7 December night 4; 8 December night 5; 9 December night 6; 10 December night 7; 11 December night 8. The eighth day continues until nightfall on 12 December. A civil listing that prints only “December 4–12” is a range, not a substitute for the sundown count.

Lights, Shabbat, and the extra flame

Each night adds one Hanukkah light, from one on the first night to eight on the eighth, plus the shamash, the helper candle used to light the others. The object is a hanukkiah: nine places, not the seven-branched Temple menorah. If you walk into a room and see four Hanukkah lights plus the shamash, you are looking at the fourth night, not at “day four at lunch,” unless that lighting was the previous evening and the next sundown has not yet come.

When the first night is a Friday, as in 2026 and 2027, the first lighting is before sundown that Friday, because Shabbat is about to begin. Saturday’s lighting waits until after nightfall. Local sunset is the clock. A table printed for another city is only a hint. If you are west of the city that published the times, wait for your own sun.

The day of Hanukkah is a count of sundowns from 25 Kislev, not the number on a December mug.

Late autumn, early winter, eight nights

In the north, Hanukkah sits in late autumn or in winter. Meteorological winter is December, January, and February, so a 4 December 2026 start is already in that winter block. Astronomical winter waits for the December solstice, so early December can still be astronomical autumn. In 2027 the first night is 24 December, after the solstice, so it sits in astronomical winter as well. In the Southern Hemisphere, December is summer. The hanukkiah still follows Kislev. The weather does not.

Hanukkah is not a U.S. federal closing holiday. Some schools note it. Most workplaces do not shut. “What day of Hanukkah is it” at an office is still the sundown count, not “the Monday of that week.” If you need the day in order to light, count nights. If you need the day in order to send a message, name the night (“third night”) and the civil date, because recipients will mix the two.

The received story attached to the eight nights is the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after the Maccabean revolt in the second century BCE, and the account of a small amount of oil that lasted eight days. This page treats that as the story of the festival. The clock you need is simpler: eight nights from 25 Kislev, first flame at sundown, local sun, no borrowed December from last year.