Why Does Easter Change Date Every Year?
Updated September 13, 2026 · 3 min read
Easter moves because it is tied to a lunar cycle rather than a fixed calendar date. The rule, settled at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, is this:
Easter is the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon on or after 21 March.
Three moving parts, three reasons the date wanders: the moon's cycle is about 29.5 days, the year is 365.2425 days, and Easter must land on a Sunday. The result is a date that can fall anywhere in a 35-day window between 22 March and 25 April.
The rule, unpacked
Each clause is doing work.
"On or after 21 March" — this is the church's fixed stand-in for the spring equinox. The actual astronomical equinox drifts between 19 and 21 March, but the calculation always uses 21 March, which keeps the answer reproducible.
"Ecclesiastical full moon" — not the real moon either. It comes from a table of approximated lunar dates built in the early church, which can differ from the astronomical full moon by a day or two. This is why Easter occasionally looks a day out from the sky.
"The first Sunday after" — and if the full moon lands on a Sunday, Easter is the following Sunday, never the same day.
How it is actually calculated
The arithmetic behind it is a formula called the computus. The version in common use is the Meeus/Jones/Butcher algorithm: nineteen lines of integer division that take the year and return the month and day, with no lunar tables required. It works because the moon's phases almost repeat on a 19-year cycle — the Metonic cycle — which the algorithm's opening step, the remainder of the year divided by 19, is tracking.
This site computes every Easter-derived date that way rather than storing a lookup table, which is why the countdowns keep working for years no one has typed in yet.
Easter dates, 2026 to 2036
| Year | Good Friday | Easter Sunday | Easter Monday |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | April 3 | April 5 | April 6 |
| 2027 | March 26 | March 28 | March 29 |
| 2028 | April 14 | April 16 | April 17 |
| 2029 | March 30 | April 1 | April 2 |
| 2030 | April 19 | April 21 | April 22 |
| 2031 | April 11 | April 13 | April 14 |
| 2032 | March 26 | March 28 | March 29 |
| 2033 | April 15 | April 17 | April 18 |
| 2034 | April 7 | April 9 | April 10 |
| 2035 | March 23 | March 25 | March 26 |
| 2036 | April 11 | April 13 | April 14 |
The live countdown is on the days until Easter page, with Good Friday and Easter Monday alongside it.
Why Orthodox Easter is usually later
Orthodox churches apply the same Nicaean rule — but using the Julian calendar, which now runs 13 days behind the Gregorian one. The 21 March they start from is 3 April in Gregorian terms, so their Easter lands one to five weeks after the Western date, and only occasionally on the same day.
The holidays that move with it
Easter drags a whole cluster of dates around the calendar with it. Each is a fixed offset:
| Holiday | Offset from Easter Sunday |
|---|---|
| Ash Wednesday | 46 days before |
| Mothering Sunday (UK) | 21 days before |
| Good Friday | 2 days before |
| Easter Monday | 1 day after |
| Ascension Day | 39 days after |
| Pentecost | 49 days after |
So when Easter is early, half the spring bank holidays in Europe move with it — which is why school terms, public holidays and even retail calendars shift year to year.
Quick answers
What is the earliest Easter can be? 22 March. It last happened in 1818 and will not happen again until 2285.
What is the latest? 25 April, next in 2038.
Why is Easter so early some years? Because the first full moon after 21 March arrived early, and a Sunday followed it quickly.
Is Easter always in April? No. It falls in March roughly a quarter of the time — including 2027, 2032 and 2035.
Keep reading
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- What Is a Leap Year, and When Is the Next One?
Leap years add 29 February to keep the calendar in step with the sun. Here's the rule in full, why 2100 is skipped, and the next leap years in order.
- How Many Days Are in Each Month?
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