When Is Halloween?
Halloween 2027 is on Sunday, October 31 — in 360 days. It is on October 31 every year; in 2028 it falls on a Tuesday.
Updated · By the YearlyCalendar.org team
Halloween is the evening before All Saints' Day, celebrated in the US with costumes, trick-or-treating and carved jack-o'-lanterns.
October 2027 calendar
Halloween is marked on Sunday, October 31, 2027, along with the other US federal holidays and observances of the month.
- Federal holiday / day off
- Observance
- Weekend
October 2027 – Halloween 2027
| Wk | SundaySun | MondayMon | TuesdayTue | WednesdayWed | ThursdayThu | FridayFri | SaturdaySat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 39 | 1 | 2Rosh Hashanah | |||||
| 40 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 41 | 10 | 11Columbus DayYom Kippur | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16Sukkot (first day) |
| 42 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
| 43 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| 43 | 31Halloween |
Halloween dates 2020–2040
Halloween falls on a weekend in 7 of these 21 years.
Origins of Halloween
Halloween has roots in Samhain, a pre-Christian Celtic festival of the dead. The Christian feasts of All Saints (November 1) and All Souls (November 2) came to fall at the same time of year; according to the Library of Congress, Christian and pre-Christian customs mingled rather than one replacing the other, producing the festival held on the eve of All Saints, October 31.
Jack-o'-lanterns
In Ireland and Britain, people carved faces into turnips, beets and potatoes to make lanterns; the National Museum of Ireland displays a plaster cast of an early-1900s carved "ghost turnip." Irish immigrants brought the custom to America in the 19th and early 20th centuries, where pumpkins, common in North America, proved much easier to carve.
Halloween and daylight saving time
Since 2007, daylight saving time in the US has ended on the first Sunday in November, so Halloween always falls before the clocks change. In 2027, clocks fall back one hour on Sunday, November 7, 2027, 7 days after Halloween.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
When is Halloween 2028?
Halloween 2028 is on Tuesday, October 31, 2028.
Is Halloween a federal holiday?
No. Halloween is not one of the 11 federal holidays, so federal offices, banks, post offices and stock markets keep normal hours when it falls on a weekday.
What does the word Halloween mean?
It is a contraction of All Hallows' Eve, the evening before All Hallows — All Saints' Day — on November 1. "Hallow" is an old word for a saint.
Where does the name jack-o'-lantern come from?
In 17th-century Britain, an unknown man was commonly called "Jack," so a night watchman carrying a lantern was a "Jack-of-the-Lantern." The name was also used for flickering marsh lights (will-o'-the-wisps). The 18th-century Irish folktale of Stingy Jack, who tricked the devil and was left to wander with an ember in a carved turnip, came later and reinforced the name.