Countdown to the civil date on which the next first night of Hanukkah begins.
Hanukkah begins at sunset on Friday, 4 December 2026 and continues for eight nights. Exact candle-lighting time depends on location.
Hanukkah begins on 25 Kislev in the Hebrew calendar, so the corresponding Gregorian date moves through late November and December.
The countdown uses the Gregorian civil date on which the first night of Hanukkah begins. For 2026 that date is Friday, 4 December. The tool is deliberately a date-planning countdown, not a candle-lighting clock, because Jewish days begin at sunset and the exact local sunset varies by latitude, longitude and date.
Families can use the day count to organise travel, gifts and gatherings; schools and community groups can see how much time is left to prepare activities; and event organisers can work backwards for venue, catering and invitation deadlines. If something needs to happen a fixed number of days before the first night, use the Date Calculator with the confirmed local date.
Hanukkah lasts for eight nights and days, with an additional light kindled on each successive night. A single countdown therefore only marks the beginning of the festival. If you are arranging an event on the third, fifth or final night, check the full holiday calendar rather than assuming the countdown date is the date of every celebration.
A browser can know your timezone, but it cannot infer the religious candle-lighting time without reliable location-specific sunset calculations. For observance, use a trusted Jewish calendar that provides times for your location. The preloaded annual dates here are based on the Hebrew-calendar dates published by Hebcal; the page does not invent future dates by adding a fixed number of days.
The current list uses first-night civil dates of 4 December 2026, 24 December 2027, 12 December 2028 and 1 December 2029. When the list is exhausted, the tool reports that the date is unavailable instead of guessing.