New Year's Day Countdown

Fresh calendar, fresh start — the world counts down together at midnight.

How many days until New Year's Day?

Live countdown to New Year's Day 2027

About New Year's Day

New Year’s Day marks the first day of the Gregorian calendar year. It is a public holiday in most of the world, and the night before is the largest synchronized celebration on the planet: fireworks, countdowns, resolutions, and midnight toasts.

The story behind New Year's Day

The oldest recorded New Year celebration is not January 1 at all: some 4,000 years ago, Babylonians marked the new year with Akitu, an eleven-day festival in late March when the crops were replanted and kings symbolically surrendered their crowns. The date only moved to January 1 in 46 BC, when Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar and let the month of Janus — the two-faced god of doorways and beginnings — lend the new year its name.

The countdown itself is younger than you think. Midnight countdowns became a public ritual in the 20th century, carried by radio and then television. The ball that drops in Times Square is descended from 19th-century time balls — harbor flags and balls that dropped at noon so ships could set their clocks. It fell on New Year's Eve for the first time in 1907 and has barely missed a year since, through wars, protests and even a wartime blackout in 1942-43.

One superstition crosses nearly every culture: whatever you do at the stroke of midnight sets the tone for the year. That is why the Spanish swallow twelve grapes — one per chime — the Scots practice "first-footing" (the first visitor after midnight should be dark-haired and bearing gifts), and Filipinos jump as high as they can.

New Year's Day dates 2027–2030

New Year's Day facts

• New Year's Day lands on January 1 every year on the Gregorian calendar.
• Countries ring in the new year in waves as midnight sweeps west across time zones — Kiribati celebrates first, Hawaii last.
• The Times Square ball drop has run almost every year since 1907.
• 'Auld Lang Syne', the song most sung at midnight, is a Scottish poem set to folk music in 1788.

New Year across the world

Midnight arrives in waves: the holiday starts in Kiritimati (UTC+14) and sweeps west for 26 hours until Baker Island rings it in last. The green dot means that city has already crossed into the new year — here is when the clock strikes twelve near you: