What Date Is Easter 2026? April 5, Good Friday & Easter Monday

Easter Sunday 2026: April 5, 2026 (Time and Date (calendar reference site)) · Good Friday 2026: April 3, 2026 (Time and Date (calendar reference site)) · Easter Monday 2026: April 6, 2026 (Time and Date (calendar reference site)) · Earliest possible Easter: March 22 (Encyclopaedia Britannica) · Latest possible Easter: April 25 (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

Six numbers, one pattern: the 2026 Easter week sits close to the early side of the calendar, and the 2027 date moves even earlier.

What are the Easter dates in 2026?

The short answer is that the Western Easter weekend in 2026 runs from Friday, April 3, through Monday, April 6. Those dates are set by the Western computus, a calendar calculation used to fix the date of Easter (IMCCE (calendar authority associated with Paris Observatory)).

Easter Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter Monday

• Easter Sunday 2026: April 5, 2026 (Time and Date (calendar reference site))
• Good Friday 2026: April 3, 2026 (Time and Date (calendar reference site))
• Easter Monday 2026: April 6, 2026 (Time and Date (calendar reference site))

Easter is a movable feast, so its date shifts every year instead of staying pinned to a fixed calendar day (World Council of Churches (global ecumenical body)). For 2026, the sequence is straightforward: Good Friday leads into Easter Sunday, and Easter Monday closes the four-day stretch.

The pattern: 2026 gives the Western church calendar a compact, early-April Easter — not the latest possible date, but early enough to shape spring plans.

What day is Good Friday and Easter 2026?

Good Friday date

• Good Friday 2026 is Friday, April 3, 2026 (Time and Date (calendar reference site))

In the Western calendar, Good Friday is the Friday before Easter Sunday. In many countries it is a public holiday, which makes it as important as the Sunday itself for planning purposes.

Easter Monday date

• Easter Monday 2026 is Monday, April 6, 2026 (Time and Date (calendar reference site))

Easter Monday is not a public holiday everywhere, but in a number of countries it closes schools, banks, and workplaces in the same way Christmas Day does.

The practical takeaway: plan the long weekend as April 3–6 if you follow Western Easter.

Why is Easter so early in 2026?

The computus calculation

• Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon on or after the fixed March 21 equinox (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
• The “full moon” is a calculated calendar date, not a direct observation of the astronomical moon (IMCCE (calendar authority associated with Paris Observatory))
• Western churches use the Gregorian computus, which came into use after the Gregorian calendar reform of the late sixteenth century (IMCCE (calendar authority associated with Paris Observatory))

In 2026, that calculation produces an April 5 date because the relevant full moon and Sunday alignment arrive in the first week of April. The equinox anchoring keeps Easter from drifting into late spring or summer.

Why the 2026 date is early

• Easter’s legal range in the Western calendar is March 22 to April 25 (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
• April 5 is closer to the early boundary than to the late one, which makes 2026 one of the earlier Easters of the modern cycle

By comparison, Christmas is fixed on December 25 every year. Easter is tied to a lunisolar sequence, so it moves inside a 35-day window while the Gregorian year stays fixed (Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Comparison with Christmas

• Christmas: fixed to December 25
• Easter: moves every year within a March 22–April 25 window (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

The implication: Easter’s mobility is not random. It follows a deliberately anchored lunar cycle, and 2026 happens to land on the early side.

Which date could Easter never be on?

Earliest and latest possible dates

• Easter never falls before March 22 (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
• Easter never falls after April 25 (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
• So March 21 and April 26 are the impossible edges in the Western calendar

The rarest Easter dates

• Because the range is only 35 days, the extreme dates appear less often than mid-April dates
• The exact frequency of each date depends on the full Gregorian computus cycle (IMCCE (calendar authority associated with Paris Observatory))

March 22 and April 25 are the boundary cases, but they do not rotate evenly. The underlying computus cycle means some dates repeat more frequently than others over long periods.

Historical occurrences

• The calendar allows both extreme edges, but most years land in the wider March 26–April 21 zone
• In 2026, Easter is closer to the early edge than the late one

What this means: if someone says Easter can be “any time in spring,” the precise answer is a fixed 35-day window beginning on March 22 and ending on April 25.

When is Easter in 2026 and 2027?

Easter 2026 date

• Western Easter Sunday: April 5, 2026 (Time and Date (calendar reference site))
• Greek Orthodox Easter, also called Pascha: April 12, 2026 (World Council of Churches (global ecumenical body))

The two dates are a week apart in 2026 because many Eastern Orthodox churches calculate Easter using the Julian computus rather than the Gregorian one (World Council of Churches (global ecumenical body)).

Easter 2027 date

• Western Easter Sunday 2027: March 28, 2027 (IMCCE (calendar authority associated with Paris Observatory))

That places the next Western Easter nearly a week earlier than 2026’s date. Two early spring Easters in a row can compress school and holiday schedules across consecutive years.

Greek Easter date

• Greek Orthodox Good Friday: April 10, 2026 (Cosmos Philly (Greek-American community outlet))
• Greek Orthodox Holy Saturday: April 11, 2026 (Cosmos Philly (Greek-American community outlet))
• Greek Orthodox Easter Monday, also called Bright Monday: April 13, 2026 (iNFO-GRECE (Greek travel information site))

The trade-off: the calendar split is not a scheduling mistake; it is the result of two different computus systems. In 2026, it produces two full Easter weeks for anyone who follows both traditions.

One date, two calendars: the 2026 Easter week in the Western and Greek Orthodox traditions.

The pattern is clear: in 2026, the Orthodox Easter week starts almost exactly when the Western Easter week ends.

What the sources say

“Easter 2026 is on April 5; Easter can fall between March 22 and April 25.”

Time and Date (calendar reference site)

“Many Eastern Orthodox churches calculate Easter using the Julian computus for liturgical purposes.”

World Council of Churches (global ecumenical body)

The pattern: these sources establish a clear consensus on both the Gregorian and Julian calculi.

The takeaway

For travelers and families who juggle Western and Orthodox calendars, the choice is clear: lock in Western Easter for April 3–6, 2026, and Orthodox Easter for April 12, 2026 — or risk celebrating an entire week early.

Frequently asked questions

The implication: these questions cover the most critical areas of uncertainty surrounding the Easter date.

Related reading

• When Was Easter 2025?
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