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Appendix C: Festival Calendar 2026-27

Planning a club celebration, or just want to know when your friends' big days fall? This appendix lists festivals and national days across South Asia's faiths and countries from November 2026 through December 2027. Before the table, a short guide explains why so many of these dates move around from year to year.

C.1 Why Festival Dates Move: Calendar Conversion

The calendar on your phone is the Gregorian calendar, a solar calendar of 365 days (366 in leap years) that most of the world uses for school, work and government. But many festivals in South Asia are set by other calendars, and every year their Gregorian dates have to be worked out again. Calendar Conversion means finding the date in one calendar that matches a date in another, for example working out which Gregorian day will be the first day of the month of Shawwal, when Eid al-Fitr begins.

South Asia uses four main kinds of calendar:

Kind What it follows Year length Example festivals
Solar The sun only about 365 days New Year's Day; Vaisakhi; Pongal; Sinhala and Tamil New Year
Lunar The moon only 354 or 355 days Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, Ashura (Hijri calendar)
Lunisolar Moon for months, sun for the year months of about 29.5 days, with an extra month added some years Diwali, Holi, Dashain, Vesak, Guru Nanak Jayanti
Gregorian (civil) The sun, with fixed month lengths 365 or 366 days National days such as 15 August or 16 December

Lunar calendars count only moons. The Hijri calendar, used by Muslims for religious dates, has twelve months of 29 or 30 days, so its year is about 11 days shorter than a Gregorian year. That's why Ramadan and the two Eids move about 11 days earlier every year and slowly travel through all the seasons. In many places a new month begins only when the new crescent moon is actually seen, so the exact day is often announced the night before.

Lunisolar calendars use moon-based months but add an extra month every few years, so that festivals stay in roughly the same season. Many Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jain festivals follow these calendars. Diwali, for example, always falls in October or November, but its exact date jumps around within that window.

Solar festivals follow the sun's position, so they land on nearly the same Gregorian date each year. Vaisakhi and the Sinhala and Tamil New Year fall around 13 to 14 April, and Pongal and Makar Sankranti around 14 to 15 January.

Two national calendars are worth knowing:

  • Bikram Sambat is Nepal's official calendar. Its years are about 56 to 57 years "ahead" of the Gregorian count, and its new year begins in mid-April with the month of Baisakh.
  • The Bangla calendar (Bangabda) is used in Bangladesh and by Bengalis in India. Its new year, Pohela Boishakh, is fixed on 14 April in Bangladesh. In West Bengal and other parts of India, the traditional calculation can put it on 14 or 15 April.

A worked example

Here is how three calendars line up on the same spring day in 2026, and what happens a year later.

  1. 14 April 2026 (Gregorian) was New Year's Day in two other calendars at once. In Nepal it was Baisakh 1, 2083 in Bikram Sambat. In Bangladesh it was Pohela Boishakh, the first day of the Bangla year 1433.
  2. Converting the year numbers. From mid-April to December, add 57 to the Gregorian year to get the Bikram Sambat year (2026 + 57 = 2083). From January to mid-April, add 56. For the Bangla year after 14 April, subtract 593 (2026 - 593 = 1433).
  3. Now follow a lunar festival. Eid al-Fitr was on 21 March 2026 in Pakistan and Bangladesh. In 2027 it is expected around 10 March. That is 11 days earlier, because the Hijri year is about 11 days shorter than the Gregorian year.
  4. And a lunisolar one. Diwali falls on 8 November 2026 and on 29 October 2027 in India. That's ten days earlier, but still in the same autumn season, because the lunisolar calendar adds an extra month every few years to catch up with the sun.

Check before you book the room

Mora giving a tip If your club is planning an Eid or Diwali party, confirm the date with a local mosque, temple or family a week or two before. Lunar dates can shift by a day, and communities sometimes celebrate on different days.

C.2 The Calendar: November 2026 to December 2027

Dates come from timeanddate.com's official holiday listings for each country, checked in October 2026. Dates marked "expected" are tentative. Dates of lunar festivals may shift by a day depending on moon sighting and region. Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh festivals can also differ by a day between countries or regions, as the Diwali and Vesak rows show. A festival listed under one country is usually celebrated in many others, and by the diaspora, even when it isn't a public holiday there.

Date Festival or day Faith or type Where the date is listed Calendar Learn more
8 Nov 2026 Diwali / Deepavali; Laxmi Puja (Tihar) Hindu India; Nepal Lunisolar Ch 7
10 Nov 2026 Bhai Tika (Tihar) Hindu Nepal Lunisolar Ch 20
15 Nov 2026 Chhath Hindu Nepal Lunisolar Ch 7
24 Nov 2026 Guru Nanak Jayanti (Gurpurab) Sikh India Lunisolar Ch 5
16 Dec 2026 Victory Day National Bangladesh Gregorian Ch 19
17 Dec 2026 National Day National Bhutan Gregorian Ch 20
25 Dec 2026 Christmas; Quaid-e-Azam Day Christian; National India, Pakistan, Bangladesh Gregorian Ch 5
30 Dec 2026 Tamu Lhosar (Gurung New Year) Community new year Nepal (optional holiday) Traditional Ch 20
14-15 Jan 2027 Makar Sankranti; Pongal (Thai Pongal) Hindu harvest India; Sri Lanka (15 Jan) Solar Ch 7
22 Jan 2027 Duruthu Poya Buddhist full moon Sri Lanka Lunisolar Ch 19
26 Jan 2027 Republic Day National India Gregorian Ch 17
4 Feb 2027 National Day National Sri Lanka Gregorian Ch 19
8-9 Feb 2027 (expected) Ramadan begins Muslim Sri Lanka, Maldives, Afghanistan (8 Feb); India (9 Feb) Lunar Ch 5
21 Feb 2027 Language Martyrs' Day; International Mother Language Day National; worldwide Bangladesh Gregorian Ch 6
6 Mar 2027 Maha Shivaratri Hindu India, Sri Lanka Lunisolar Ch 7
10 Mar 2027 (expected) Eid al-Fitr Muslim India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Afghanistan Lunar Ch 7
21 Mar 2027 Nowruz Persian New Year Afghanistan (listed as an observance, not a public holiday) Solar Ch 18
22 Mar 2027 Holi Hindu India, Sri Lanka Lunisolar Ch 7
23 Mar 2027 Pakistan Day National Pakistan (fixed date) Gregorian Ch 18
26 Mar 2027 Independence Day National Bangladesh (fixed date) Gregorian Ch 19
7 Apr 2027 Ugadi; Gudi Padwa Hindu new year India Lunisolar Ch 7
13-14 Apr 2027 Sinhala and Tamil New Year Cultural new year Sri Lanka Solar Ch 19
14 Apr 2027 Vaisakhi; Vishu; Pohela Boishakh Sikh and Hindu festivals; Bangla New Year India; Bangladesh (fixed date) Solar Ch 7
17 May 2027 (expected) Eid al-Adha Muslim India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Afghanistan Lunar Ch 7
19-20 May 2027 Vesak; Buddha Purnima Buddhist Sri Lanka (19 May); India (20 May) Lunisolar Ch 5
15-16 Jun 2027 (expected) Ashura (Muharram) Muslim Afghanistan (15 Jun); India (16 Jun) Lunar Ch 5
26 Jul 2027 Independence Day National Maldives Gregorian Ch 20
14 Aug 2027 Independence Day National Pakistan Gregorian Ch 18
15 Aug 2027 Independence Day; Mawlid (Milad un-Nabi, expected) National; Muslim India; India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Afghanistan Gregorian; Lunar Ch 17
17 Aug 2027 Raksha Bandhan Hindu India Lunisolar Ch 13
19 Aug 2027 Independence Day National Afghanistan Gregorian Ch 18
25 Aug 2027 Janmashtami Hindu India Lunisolar Ch 7
12 Sep 2027 Onam Hindu harvest (Kerala) India Solar (Malayalam calendar) Ch 7
5-9 Oct 2027 Durga Puja; Dussehra (9 Oct) Hindu India Lunisolar Ch 7
28-29 Oct 2027 Deepavali; Diwali Hindu Sri Lanka (28 Oct); India (29 Oct) Lunisolar Ch 7
14 Nov 2027 Guru Nanak Jayanti (Gurpurab) Sikh India Lunisolar Ch 5
25 Dec 2027 Christmas Christian India, Sri Lanka Gregorian Ch 5

Not in the table yet. As of October 2026, official 2027 holiday lists for Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan had not been published, so 2027 dates for Dashain, Tihar, Losar, Durga Puja in Bangladesh, and the Nepali New Year (Bikram Sambat 2084) are left out rather than guessed. Check those countries' government announcements or timeanddate.com closer to the time.

Sources