Easter Countdown
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Easter Sunday is a moveable feast calculated by the Gregorian calendar: the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox (March 21). This places Easter between March 22 and April 25 each year. The date is computed automatically — no manual update is needed when the new year begins. This countdown is used by families planning Easter egg hunts, travel, and church services, as well as retailers planning seasonal promotions.
Because Easter changes date every year, many people do not know exactly when it falls until weeks beforehand. This countdown removes the guesswork, displaying the exact number of days remaining until Easter Sunday in your local time.
The hardest date in the calendar to compute
Easter is the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon on or after 21 March. That rule uses a computed approximation of the moon rather than the astronomical one, which is why the calculation — the computus — has its own literature and its own centuries of argument.
The practical range is 22 March to 25 April in the Gregorian calendar. Nothing else in common use moves across five weeks, which is why so much of the spring calendar is defined relative to Easter rather than to a date.
Two Easters, usually on different days
Most Orthodox churches compute Easter using the Julian calendar, which currently runs thirteen days behind the Gregorian. The two dates coincide in some years and diverge by up to five weeks in others.
A countdown therefore has to say which one it counts to. This one uses the Western Gregorian date, which is what most Western calendars and public holidays follow.
The dates that move with it
Because Easter moves, a chain of observances moves with it: Ash Wednesday forty-six days before, Palm Sunday the week before, Good Friday, Ascension thirty-nine days after, Pentecost forty-nine days after. In several countries those are public holidays, which means the working calendar shifts too.
Germany's Father's Day falls on Ascension for the same reason. Anyone scheduling internationally around spring finds that a surprising number of fixed-looking commitments are actually pegged to a movable Sunday.
Offsets from Easter Sunday. This countdown uses the Western Gregorian date.
| Observance | Offset | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Ash Wednesday | -46 days | Start of Lent |
| Palm Sunday | -7 days | — |
| Good Friday | -2 days | Public holiday in many countries |
| Easter Sunday | 0 | 22 March - 25 April |
| Easter Monday | +1 day | Public holiday in many countries |
| Ascension | +39 days | German Father's Day |
| Pentecost | +49 days | — |
| Orthodox Easter | Varies | Julian calculation, 0-5 weeks later |
- The rule uses a computed ecclesiastical moon rather than the astronomical one — the computus is its own field.
- Western and Orthodox Easter coincide in some years and differ by up to five weeks in others.
Source: The computus and the offsets of dependent observances are established calendrical definitions
Sources
- The computus and the offsets of dependent observances are established calendrical definitions , TheTimerLab — accessed 2026-07-28