New Year Countdown

DateMath counts to 12:00 AM on January 1 on your device's clock. The New Year doesn't start everywhere at once: each time zone reaches midnight at its own moment, so the countdown follows yours and reaches zero with your local midnight. The time left is real time, so the hour the clocks go back in the fall is counted. On January 1 it wishes you a happy New Year and starts counting to the next one.

• Your device's local time. DateMath's countdowns read the current time from your device and count to the target in your own time zone. In the US, the standard time zones are set by 15 U.S.C. 261 and daylight saving time by 15 U.S.C. 260a (from 2:00 AM on the second Sunday in March to 2:00 AM on the first Sunday in November); your device applies them. Source: 15 U.S.C. 261, 15 U.S.C. 260a.
• The Gregorian calendar. DateMath treats every date as a Gregorian date, with its leap-year rule: a year divisible by 4 is a leap year, except century years not divisible by 400, so 2000 had a February 29 and 2100 will not. Source: Gregorian calendar.

DateMath's date math is tested against more than 100 cases worked out by hand. Every worked example and table on the site is computed with the same code the calculators run, so a page and its calculator can't disagree.

The countdown above runs to 12:00 AM on Friday, January 1, 2027, on your own clock: a new year countdown live in days, hours, minutes and seconds that reaches zero the moment the New Year starts where you are. It is a countdown timer to New Year that needs no setting, so on New Year's Eve, December 31, 2026, open the page, press Full screen and let the countdown clock for NYE run the last seconds.

What the countdown shows

• The time left to midnight on January 1, in days, hours, minutes and seconds.
• The weekday New Year's Day falls on: Friday, January 1, 2027 for New Year 2027.
• Calendar days to go, with the same span in weeks and days.

On January 1 the countdown wishes you a happy New Year and starts counting to the next one. For a party that counts down to another moment, such as the ball drop on New York time, set the day countdown to that time on your clock.

The ball in New York's Times Square starts to drop at 11:59 PM Eastern Time and lands at midnight, so the ball drop countdown clock on TV counts down the last 60 seconds of the year on New York time (see the Times Square official site). Elsewhere in the US, the New York countdown arrives before your own midnight, because every zone to the west reaches midnight later:

The countdown on this page follows your own zone. For an NYE countdown live on New York time from Chicago, for example, set the day countdown to December 31, 2026 at 11:00 PM, the moment the ball lands there. A TV picture can run a few seconds behind real time, so the countdown on your screen can reach zero just before the ball does on the broadcast.

Each time zone reaches midnight at its own moment, so the New Year takes about a day to go around the world. Kiritimati, Kiribati, on UTC+14, is among the first places to celebrate, and Pago Pago, American Samoa, on UTC−11, among the last inhabited ones, 25 hours later. The table gives each place's midnight in New York time, with the offset each place uses in December, from the IANA time zone database your device also uses:

Sydney and Auckland are on daylight saving time in December, during the southern summer; the US, Europe and Japan are not. Your device applies these rules for you, which is why the countdown can simply follow its clock.

New Year's Day moves one weekday later each year, and two after a February 29. When January 1 falls on a Saturday, the US federal holiday is observed on Friday, December 31, so in those years the day off comes in the old year.

• Full screen on a TV. Open the page on a laptop connected to the TV and press Full screen; the numbers grow to fill it.
• Several screens at once. DateMath reads each device's own clock, and devices that set their time automatically from the network usually agree within a second.
• The last minute. At 11:59 PM the days and hours tiles show 0, and the seconds count from 59 down to 0 at midnight.
• A timer instead. For an NYE countdown timer of a set length, such as the last 10 minutes, use the countdown timer.

For the holiday a week before, see the Christmas countdown.