Is New Year's Eve December 31 or January 1?

New Year's Eve is December 31 and New Year's Day is January 1. In the years January 1 falls on a Saturday, US federal schedules print December 31 under the name New Year's Day.

Why does the year end on December 31?

Because a statute changed the calendar. Until the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 the British legal year ran from 25 March, and the Act made the day after the last day of December 1751 the first day of 1752.

Is New Year's Eve the same as Hogmanay?

Hogmanay is Scotland's name for its New Year celebration, and the National Records of Scotland uses the word without fixing it to a single date. Scotland's New Year bank holidays in the gov.uk dataset fall on 1 and 2 January, not on 31 December.

New Year’s Eve

Next celebratedThursday, December 31, 2026

December 31 closes the year almost everywhere, yet US federal law does not list it among the eleven legal public holidays, and Philippine statute files it under another name: the Last Day of the Year.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

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Last updated September 4, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEDecember 31

OBSERVED INInternationally

CATEGORYFederal

ORIGIN

Historical Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

“The old year "beginneth on the twenty-fifth day of March".

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

Britain fixed the year's last day by Act of Parliament.

New Year's Eve has no founder and no establishment record; it is the eve of whatever day a calendar calls the start of the year, so it moved when the calendar moved. The Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 ordered that Britain's old reckoning, under which the year began on 25 March, was not to be used "from and after the last day of December one thousand seven hundred and fifty-one", throughout the Crown's dominions in Europe, Asia, Africa and America.

Read the Calendar Act 1750via The National Archives

INTRO

The night a clock can read 23:59:60 UTC

Every New Year's Eve ends on a countdown. Sixteen times, the last minute of 31 December UTC has run 61 seconds instead of 60.

On those nights the clock read 23:59:60 UTC, a real and legal 61st second of the year. The other eleven of the 27 leap seconds ever inserted fell at the end of 30 June, and no other date has ever carried one.

The most recent came in 2016, and the gap between atomic time and civil time has not moved since 1 January 2017.

DEALS & OFFERS

2026’s deals have wrapped

See who celebrated this year, and browse offers from past years.

Offers wrapped for 2026

New Year’s Eve ran on December 31. Here’s who celebrated with offers this year.

3 brands offered a deal this year

ORIGINS

New Year’s Eve history

INTRODUCTION

For centuries the British year did not end in December. The legal year began on 25 March, which made 24 March its last day. Changing that took an Act of Parliament.

The Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 ended that reckoning after the last day of December 1751. The following New Year's Day became the first of 1752. Its first section also deleted eleven days outright: the day after 2 September 1752 "shall be called, reckoned, and accounted to be the fourteenth day of September".

CHAPTER 01

Greenwich dropped a ball for the ships

The most watched object of the night began as a public utility. The Greenwich time ball on top of Flamsteed House was first used in 1833. Royal Museums Greenwich calls it "one of the world's earliest public time signals", distributing time to ships on the Thames and to many Londoners.

It still works. The ball rises halfway up its mast at 12.55 and to the top at 12.58. At 13.00 exactly it falls, and anyone watching can set a clock by it.

CHAPTER 02

Times Square borrowed a sailor's clock

The Times Square Alliance traces its own ball to that mast at Greenwich. Under its own heading about time-balls, the organiser says the drop at one o'clock let "the captains of nearby ships" set their chronometers, the instrument they navigated by.

Crowds had been gathering in Times Square as early as 1904. The ball arrived in 1907, and it was borrowed technology from its first night.

CHAPTER 03

What actually fell in 1907

The first New Year's Eve ball made its maiden descent from the flagpole atop One Times Square. It was iron and wood, five feet across, 700 pounds, and lit by one hundred 25-watt bulbs.

It was built by "a young immigrant metalworker named Jacob Starr", whose company Artkraft Strauss lowered it for most of the twentieth century. The ball that falls now is 12.5 feet across and weighs 12,350 pounds.

Nobody founded New Year's Eve. What the crowd watches is a chain of borrowed equipment: a signal built for ships, hung over a New York street, marking the end of a year Parliament had already moved.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love New Year's Eve

METROLOGY

The extra second on 31 December UTC is being retired.

In 2022 the 27th General Conference on Weights and Measures resolved that the maximum permitted difference between clock time and the Earth's rotation "will be increased in, or before, 2035", which retires the leap second. Its stated reason is that the discontinuities "risk causing serious malfunctions in critical digital infrastructure including the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs), telecommunications, and energy transmission systems".

LAW

Not one of the eleven US legal holidays

5 U.S.C. 6103(a) lists eleven legal public holidays and December 31 is not among them. January 1 is, under the name New Year's Day.

PAYROLL

The federal day off that carries another name

When January 1 falls on a Saturday, 5 U.S.C. 6103(b)(1) moves the holiday to "the Friday immediately before", so federal offices closed on December 31 in 1999, 2004, 2010 and 2021. The Office of Personnel Management prints that Friday under the name New Year's Day, and its 2028 schedule already lists Friday, December 31, 2027.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Parliament moves the year's end

The Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 ends the old reckoning after the last day of December 1751.

Greenwich starts dropping a ball

The time ball on Flamsteed House, one of the world's earliest public time signals, is first used.

First ball falls in Times Square

Seven hundred pounds of iron and wood makes its maiden descent from the flagpole atop One Times Square.

First leap second at year's end

TAI minus UTC steps from 11 to 12 seconds on 1 January 1973, so a second was inserted at the end of 31 December 1972.

Kiribati skips 31 December entirely

The Phoenix and Line Islands go from Friday 30 December 1994 straight to Sunday 1 January 1995.

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about New Year's Eve

The next correction may delete a second

The 27th General Conference on Weights and Measures noted "the possible need for the first negative leap second whose insertion has never been foreseen or tested". The Earth has been running slightly fast, so the fix might be a subtraction.

One page decides it, twice a year

IERS Bulletin C is addressed "To authorities responsible for the measurement and distribution of time" and appears every six months. Bulletin C 72, dated Paris, 6 July 2026, says: "NO leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2026."

In the Federal Register, December days off flank Christmas

The Federal Register's full-text index carries 16 presidential documents excusing federal employees from duty, from EO 13068 in 1997 to EO 14371 in 2025. Every December date among them is the 24th or the 26th.

The ball stopped for a wartime dimout

It has been lowered every year since 1907 except 1942 and 1943, when the dimout of lights in New York City suspended the ceremony. Crowds still gathered and marked midnight with a minute of silence, followed by chimes from sound trucks at the base of the tower.

Around 150 time-balls followed Greenwich

The Times Square Alliance says around 150 public time-balls are believed to have been installed worldwide after the success at Greenwich, though few survive and still work. The US Naval Observatory still drops one from a flagpole at noon each day.

GOOD TO KNOW

New Year's Eve Around the World

Kiribati

Kiritimati is the only named place at UTC+14 in the IANA time zone database, so it reaches midnight first, 15 minutes before the Chatham Islands and an hour before Auckland.

Samoa

The International Date Line Act 2011 moved the country from UTC-11 to UTC+13 at midnight on Thursday 29 December 2011, so Friday 30 December vanished and the country kept its New Year's Eve.

Philippines

Republic Act No. 9492 makes 31 December one of exactly three Nationwide Special Holidays and calls it the Last Day of the Year, not New Year's Eve. Proclamation No. 1006 carried it into 2026.

United Kingdom

The gov.uk bank-holiday dataset covering 2019 to 2028 carries no 31 December entry for England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. Scotland alone gets a 2 January bank holiday that the rest of the UK does not have.

Scotland

The National Records of Scotland writes that Hogmanay "remained the focus of Scottish celebration for centuries", while Christmas was only recognised as a public holiday there in 1971. The same article cites Glasgow kirk session minutes recording five people ordered on 26 December 1583 to make public repentance for keeping Yule.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate New Year's Eve

Watch the ball come down at midnight

The Times Square Alliance organises the descent from One Times Square and publishes its own history of the ball. Read that first, then watch the drop knowing exactly what the object is.

CHECK

Check whether the last minute runs long

IERS Bulletin C says in a single page whether a leap second is coming, and anyone can read it. Look it up in advance and you will know whether the final minute of 31 December UTC runs 60 seconds or 61.

Follow midnight across the date line

Kiritimati turns the year at UTC+14, the Chatham Islands 15 minutes later, and Auckland an hour after that. Set three alarms and take the new year in stages instead of once.

READ

Read the act that deleted eleven days

Section 1 of the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 is short, strange and still on the books, with no outstanding effects recorded against it.

VISIT

Visit a time ball on an ordinary afternoon

The Greenwich ball still runs every day, rising at 12.55 and falling at 13.00, and it is not run in high wind. Pick a calm afternoon and you can set your watch by a signal older than the countdown.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know New Year’s Eve?

1 / 8

How many of the 27 leap seconds inserted since 1972 have fallen at the end of 31 December UTC?

Answer

It depends where you are. December 31 is not among the eleven legal public holidays in 5 U.S.C. 6103(a), it appears nowhere in the UK government's bank-holiday data for 2019 to 2028, and in the Philippines it is a Nationwide Special Holiday by statute.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

14sources

14primary records

8independently dated

Office of the Law Revision Counsel, US House of Representatives2025

5 U.S.C. §6103. Holidays

The statute listing the eleven US legal public holidays, New Year's Day included.

View source

US Office of Personnel Management

Federal Holidays

Federal holiday schedules from 1996 to 2030, with the Saturday rule explained.

View source

International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service2026-07

Leap_Second.dat

The table of every TAI-UTC step since 1972, with the date each took effect.

View source

International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service2026-07

Bulletin C 72

The twice-yearly announcement of whether a leap second will be added.

View source

Bureau International des Poids et Mesures2022

Resolution 4 of the 27th CGPM (2022): On the use and future development of UTC

The 2022 decision to widen the UT1-UTC limit in or before 2035.

View source

IANA Time Zone Database

australasia data file

Zone records and dated contributor notes behind Pacific date-line changes.

View source

Congress of the Philippines2007

Republic Act No. 9492

The act naming three Nationwide Special Holidays, 31 December among them.

View source

Office of the President of the Philippines2025

Proclamation No. 1006, s. 2025

The 2026 Philippine holiday list, carrying the Last Day of the Year.

View source

UK Government (GOV.UK)

UK bank holidays

Every UK bank holiday from 2019 to 2028, in machine-readable form.

View source

The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk)1750

Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, section 1

The section that moved the start of the year to 1 January and cut eleven days.

View source

Royal Museums Greenwich

The Greenwich Time Ball and one time for all

The observatory's account of its time ball, first used in 1833.

View source

Times Square Alliance

NYE History & Times Square Ball

The organiser's history of the ball, from time-balls to the current one.

View source

National Records of Scotland2018-12

Christmas: Banned in Scotland!

Scotland's national archive on the suppression of Yule and the rise of Hogmanay.

View source

Office of the Federal Register

Federal Register documents API

Full-text search across presidential documents, including orders excusing federal employees from duty.

View source

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