Today's Date in the UK, Free Date Calculator & Bank Holidays.
Today’s date in the UK
Live UK time, date calculator and bank holidays
Counts from the start date up to the end date. Switch on “Include the end date” to count both days.
Working days skip weekends and bank holidays in the region you pick at the top.
Find the weekday for any date from year 1 to 9999.
Dates match the official gov.uk bank holiday calendars. Years after 2028 follow the standard rules until gov.uk publishes them.
gov.uk/bank-holidays data, not copied from a third-party list. The date maths underneath (days between dates, adding or subtracting days, working-day counts) is calculated directly rather than pulled from your device's clock, so leap years, month lengths and weekends are always handled correctly — no guesswork, no rounding errors.
Most people only ever need one of three things from a date tool: the date and time right now, the gap between two dates, or whether a particular Monday is a bank holiday before they book it off work. Rather than bouncing between three different sites, the calculator above does all three — and this guide walks through exactly how to get the most out of it, plus a full, government-verified list of UK bank holidays through to 2028.
What is today's date in the UK?
The calculator at the top of this page answers that literally, updating itself second by second in UK local time — which, unlike a lot of "today's date" widgets, actually matters here. The UK doesn't sit on a single fixed offset all year round: clocks run on GMT (UTC+0) from late October to late March, then jump forward to British Summer Time (UTC+1) for the rest of the year. A tool that just reads a visitor's device clock can get the date wrong for anyone browsing from outside the UK, or show the wrong time zone badge during the changeover weeks. This one reads the actual London time zone directly, so the date, the day of the week and the BST/GMT label are correct whether you're checking it from Manchester or from Melbourne.
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all share the same date and time zone — the only thing that changes region to region is which days are bank holidays, which is covered further down.
UK date format vs. the rest of the world
One thing that trips people up constantly: the UK writes dates day–month–year (25/12/2026), while the US writes month–day–year (12/25/2026). Written numerically, 04/09/2026 means completely different days depending on which country you're in — which is exactly why the calculator's "Copy date" button gives you five formats at once instead of guessing which one you need.
| Format | Example | Typically used for |
|---|---|---|
| UK format (DD/MM/YYYY) | 25/12/2026 | Everyday UK use — forms, letters, invoices |
| US format (MM/DD/YYYY) | 12/25/2026 | US paperwork, some American software |
| ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) | 2026-12-25 | Spreadsheets, databases, filenames — sorts correctly |
| Written out | 25 December 2026 | Letters, invitations, anything formal |
| With weekday | Friday 25 December 2026 | Diaries, event confirmations |
How to use this calculator
The tool is split into three tabs — Today, Calculator and Bank holidays — and the Calculator tab itself has three separate modes inside it. Here's what every part of it actually does, so you're not left guessing what a button is for.
The "Today" tab
Shows today's date the way a desk calendar does. Tap it and it plays a little tear-off animation to yesterday's page underneath — purely decorative, but it's a nice touch if you're demonstrating the tool to someone.
Ticks in real UK time and shows whether the country is currently on BST or GMT. If your own device is set to a different time zone, a small line underneath tells you so, so there's never any confusion about which "today" you're looking at.
Opens a small menu with the date already written out in all five formats from the table above. Tap any line and it's copied to your clipboard, ready to paste into an email, form or spreadsheet.
A quick visual for how much of the current year has gone — handy for anyone tracking annual targets, subscriptions or budgets that reset in January.
Four numbers a lot of admin and finance tasks need: the ISO week number, which day of the year it is (1–365 or 366), how many days remain, and which financial or calendar quarter you're in.
The current month with today highlighted and a small dot under any UK bank holiday, so you can see at a glance whether a date you're planning around is a working day.
Today's moon phase and illumination percentage, plus the date and time of the next full or new moon — a small extra, but a genuinely popular thing people search for.
A scrolling row counting down to the next few notable dates — clock changes, Halloween, Bonfire Night, Christmas and New Year's Day — updated automatically as each one passes.
The "Calculator" tab — three modes
Switch between the three modes using the small pill buttons at the top of the tab. Each one is built for a different question.
Enter a From and To date (or use the swap button to flip them). Tick "Include the end date" if you want both endpoints counted — this one toggle changes whether 1 January to 31 January reads as 30 days or 31, which trips a lot of people up when they're calculating notice periods.
- The big number is the total days between the two dates
- Underneath it, the same gap shown as years, months and days
- Four smaller figures: full weeks, weekdays (Mon–Fri), working days (weekdays minus UK bank holidays in the region you've selected), and weekend days
- Quick buttons jump straight to Christmas, New Year or 100 days out
Pick a start date, choose Add or Subtract, then enter an amount and a unit — days, weeks, months, years, or working days. The working-days option is the one worth knowing about: instead of just adding 10 calendar days, it skips weekends and bank holidays automatically, which is exactly how most contract and delivery deadlines are actually calculated.
- Result shows the resulting date, its weekday, ISO week number and whether it lands on a bank holiday
- Adding months or years clamps sensibly at month-end — 31 January plus one month correctly lands on 28 February (or 29 in a leap year), never "March 3rd"
Type in any date — past, present or centuries into the future — and it tells you the day of the week, the ISO week number, the day-of-year number, whether that year is a leap year, and whether the date is a UK bank holiday.
The "Bank holidays" tab
Right at the top of the tool. Bank holidays are not the same across the UK — Scotland and Northern Ireland each observe different dates to England and Wales — so pick the correct region before relying on any working-day count.
Shows the very next upcoming bank holiday for your selected region and a live countdown in days, plus whether today itself happens to be one.
Step backward or forward through the years with the arrows either side of the year number. The thin timeline underneath plots every holiday across the year at a glance, with today marked by a red line.
Every bank holiday for the selected year and region, with the date, weekday and a countdown for each — and a small "substitute" tag on any holiday that's been moved because the original date fell on a weekend.
UK date calculator: days between two dates
Working out the days between two dates sounds like it should be simple subtraction, and it almost is — right up until a month boundary, a leap year, or the question of whether you count the first day, the last day, or both gets involved. That's the bit people usually get wrong doing it by hand or in a spreadsheet with the wrong formula.
A few real situations where this comes up constantly:
- Notice periods and contracts — most UK employment and tenancy notice periods are written in calendar days, not working days, so getting the exact count matters
- Age and anniversaries — working out exactly how many days old someone is, or how long a relationship, business or project has run
- Event planning — how many days are actually left until a wedding, exam, house move or holiday
- Return and refund windows — many UK retailers count from the date of delivery, not the date of purchase
| From | To | Calendar days (exclusive) | Including both dates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 January 2026 | 31 January 2026 | 30 | 31 |
| 1 March 2026 | 1 April 2026 | 31 | 32 |
| 29 February 2028 | 1 March 2028 | 1 | 2 |
| 1 January 2026 | 25 December 2026 | 358 | 359 |
Notice the difference the "include both dates" setting makes — it's a single day either way, but on a legal notice period or a payment deadline, that single day is often the whole argument. The calculator's toggle exists specifically so you don't have to remember to add or subtract 1 manually.
Add or subtract days from any date
The flip side of the same problem: you know the start date and how many days, weeks or months you need to add — you just want the resulting date without counting on your fingers or miscounting how many days are in the months in between.
| Situation | Typical amount | Why the exact date matters |
|---|---|---|
| Online return window | 14 or 30 days | Missing it by even a day can void a refund |
| Visa or visa-run deadlines | 90 or 180 days | Overstaying is measured in exact calendar days |
| Probationary period | 3 or 6 months | Needs the month-end clamping rule, not "30 days per month" |
| Contract completion deadline | A set number of working days | Must skip weekends and bank holidays to be accurate |
| Statutory notice to quit | 28 days | Calendar days, counted precisely from service of the notice |
That "3 or 6 months needs the month-end clamping rule" line is worth explaining, because it's the single most common bug in home-made date calculators. If you add one month to 31 January, there is no 31 February — the correct answer is 28 February (or 29 in a leap year), not "roll over to 3 March." The calculator on this page handles that clamp automatically in the Add or subtract mode, and tells you when it's happened so the result is never a silent surprise.
Calendar days vs. weekdays vs. working days
These three terms get used interchangeably, but they mean different things — and a working days calculator for the UK is only useful if it's counting the right one for your situation.
| Term | Includes weekends? | Includes bank holidays? | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calendar days | Yes | Yes | Most contracts, tenancy notice, statutory deadlines |
| Weekdays | No (Mon–Fri only) | Yes — still counted | School terms, some delivery estimates |
| Working days | No | No — also excluded | Business processing times, payroll, most "X working days" quotes |
That last figure is the one payroll and project-planning spreadsheets actually want, and it's exactly what the calculator's "Working days" figure gives you for any date range you enter — not just the full year, but any custom start and end date, adjusted for whichever UK region you've selected.
UK bank holidays 2026, 2027 and 2028
Every date in the three tables below is taken straight from the UK Government's official bank holiday data and cross-checked against the calculator above, so you can treat this section as a reliable reference on its own, without even opening the tool. Where a holiday's actual date falls on a weekend, the "substitute day" is the one that's actually observed as the day off — that's the date to put in a diary, not the original one.
*Scotland's 2026 total includes a one-off World Cup bank holiday on 15 June, marking the men's national team reaching the tournament — it won't repeat in 2027.
England & Wales
| Holiday | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Year's Day | Thu 1 Jan | Fri 1 Jan | Mon 3 Jan (substitute) |
| Good Friday | Fri 3 Apr | Fri 26 Mar | Fri 14 Apr |
| Easter Monday | Mon 6 Apr | Mon 29 Mar | Mon 17 Apr |
| Early May bank holiday | Mon 4 May | Mon 3 May | Mon 1 May |
| Spring bank holiday | Mon 25 May | Mon 31 May | Mon 29 May |
| Summer bank holiday | Mon 31 Aug | Mon 30 Aug | Mon 28 Aug |
| Christmas Day | Fri 25 Dec | Mon 27 Dec (substitute) | Mon 25 Dec |
| Boxing Day | Mon 28 Dec (substitute) | Tue 28 Dec (substitute) | Tue 26 Dec |
Scotland
| Holiday | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Year's Day | Thu 1 Jan | Fri 1 Jan | Mon 3 Jan (substitute) |
| 2nd January | Fri 2 Jan | Mon 4 Jan (substitute) | Tue 4 Jan (substitute) |
| Good Friday | Fri 3 Apr | Fri 26 Mar | Fri 14 Apr |
| Early May bank holiday | Mon 4 May | Mon 3 May | Mon 1 May |
| Spring bank holiday | Mon 25 May | Mon 31 May | Mon 29 May |
| Summer bank holiday | Mon 3 Aug | Mon 2 Aug | Mon 7 Aug |
| St Andrew's Day | Mon 30 Nov | Tue 30 Nov | Thu 30 Nov |
| Christmas Day | Fri 25 Dec | Mon 27 Dec (substitute) | Mon 25 Dec |
| Boxing Day | Mon 28 Dec (substitute) | Tue 28 Dec (substitute) | Tue 26 Dec |
Scotland doesn't observe Easter Monday as a bank holiday, but gets an extra day at New Year (2 January) and St Andrew's Day (30 November) instead.
Northern Ireland
| Holiday | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Year's Day | Thu 1 Jan | Fri 1 Jan | Mon 3 Jan (substitute) |
| St Patrick's Day | Tue 17 Mar | Wed 17 Mar | Fri 17 Mar |
| Good Friday | Fri 3 Apr | Fri 26 Mar | Fri 14 Apr |
| Easter Monday | Mon 6 Apr | Mon 29 Mar | Mon 17 Apr |
| Early May bank holiday | Mon 4 May | Mon 3 May | Mon 1 May |
| Spring bank holiday | Mon 25 May | Mon 31 May | Mon 29 May |
| Battle of the Boyne (Orangemen's Day) | Mon 13 Jul (substitute) | Mon 12 Jul | Wed 12 Jul |
| Summer bank holiday | Mon 31 Aug | Mon 30 Aug | Mon 28 Aug |
| Christmas Day | Fri 25 Dec | Mon 27 Dec (substitute) | Mon 25 Dec |
| Boxing Day | Mon 28 Dec (substitute) | Tue 28 Dec (substitute) | Tue 26 Dec |
When is the next UK bank holiday?
Rather than list every possible "next holiday" scenario here (it depends entirely on which day you're reading this and which region you're in), the Bank holidays tab on the calculator does this live — it always shows the very next one for your selected region, with an exact day count, and flags it clearly if today happens to be a bank holiday itself. It's a lot more reliable than the mental arithmetic of "wait, is Easter early or late this year?"
A quick rule of thumb if you're planning ahead without opening the tool: England and Wales get 8 bank holidays a year, Northern Ireland gets 10, and Scotland normally gets 9 (10 in 2026, because of the one-off World Cup holiday) — and Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year's Day are the ones most likely to shift by a day or two because of where they land against the weekend.
Frequently asked questions
What is today's date in the UK right now?
What date format does the UK use?
How many working days between two dates are there in the UK?
What is today's date in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
Is today a bank holiday in the UK?
When is the next bank holiday in the UK?
Do Scotland and Northern Ireland have the same bank holidays as England?
How many days are left in the year?
Why does the calculator sometimes say a date is a "substitute" bank holiday?
Add this tool to your website
Bookmark this page if you check dates, deadlines or UK bank holidays often — the calculator above is updated live, and the reference tables here will be extended as further years are confirmed on gov.uk.
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