Diwali 2026: The Date, and Why Your City's Time Differs

Diwali 2026 falls on Sunday 8 November. That is the date in Delhi, in Mumbai, in London, in New York and in Sydney, because the main day is fixed by the new moon and the new moon happens at one instant everywhere on earth.

What does not match is everything around it. The puja window opens at 4:35 in the afternoon in London and at 8:04 at night in Sydney. The last two days of the festival fall on different dates in India than they do in Britain or America. Anyone sending a greeting across time zones, or planning a call home, needs the second set of numbers more than the first.

The Lakshmi Puja window, city by city

The puja is meant to be done in Pradosh Kaal, the stretch after sunset, and within that during Vrishabha Kaal, when a fixed sign is rising. Fixed is the point. The belief is that Lakshmi stays where she is welcomed under a steady sign rather than a moving one.

Sunset moves with longitude, so the window moves with it. London opens first at 4:35 PM and closes at 6:12 PM, which is barely an hour and a half. Sydney opens last, at 8:04 PM. Between those two ends sit New York at 5:04 PM, Toronto at 5:17 PM, Kolkata at 5:20 PM, Delhi at 5:54 PM, Dubai at 5:58 PM, Chennai at 6:06 PM, Hyderabad at 6:07 PM, Bengaluru at 6:17 PM and Mumbai at 6:27 PM.

Kolkata and Mumbai are both in India and both on the same clock, and their windows open 67 minutes apart. A time copied from a national news site is wrong for most of the country it was published in.

The five days do not line up across the world

This is the part that catches families out.

In Delhi the sequence runs Govatsa Dwadashi on Thursday 5 November, Dhanteras on Friday the 6th, Kali Chaudas on Saturday the 7th, Naraka Chaturdashi and Lakshmi Puja together on Sunday the 8th, Diwali Snan on Monday the 9th, Govardhan Puja on Tuesday the 10th and Bhai Dooj on Wednesday the 11th.

In London and New York the first four days are identical, and then the calendar closes a day early. Govardhan Puja is Monday 9 November and Bhai Dooj is Tuesday the 10th. India carries an extra observance, Diwali Snan, that the diaspora calendars do not.

So a brother in New Jersey and his sister in Jaipur are looking at Bhai Dooj on two different days. One of them will be a day out unless somebody checks.

Why the date moves at all

Diwali is set by Amavasya, the new moon of the month of Kartik, and the Hindu calendar is lunisolar rather than solar. The tithi has to be current during Pradosh for the puja to be held that evening, which is why the festival lands in late October some years and in November others.

In 2026 the Amavasya tithi begins at 11:27 AM on 8 November and ends at 12:31 PM on the 9th, read in Indian Standard Time. The same instant reads as 12:57 AM on the 8th in New York and 5:57 AM in London, which is the mechanism behind the mismatch further down the festival.

The wedding season opens a few days later

Diwali is also the signal that weddings are about to restart. The four months of Chaturmas, when auspicious ceremonies pause, end with Dev Uthani Ekadashi, and Tulsi Vivah is treated as the first wedding of the new season before any human one is held.

From there the calendar fills quickly. If you are looking further ahead, the 2027 muhurat calendar sets out the dates month by month, and December 2026 has seven before the calendar shuts again in the middle of the month.

Two more things worth having to hand. The festival is kept for six different reasons depending on the household, and the dates after this one are already settled: Diwali 2027 and 2028 fall on Friday 29 October and Tuesday 17 October.