Ramadan Dates 2027 to 2035: When Ramadan Begins and Ends Each Year

The Short Answer

By the Umm al-Qura calendar of Saudi Arabia, Ramadan begins on 8 February 2027, 28 January 2028, 16 January 2029, 5 January 2030 and again on 26 December 2030, then about 11 days earlier every year, until it begins on 1 November 2035. Each Ramadan lasts 29 or 30 days and Eid al-Fitr is the day after it ends. These are calendar dates: many countries announce Ramadan only after the crescent has been looked for on the evening of the 29th of Sha'ban, so the day kept where you live can be a day later, and in 2030 and 2031 that is especially likely.

Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr, 1448 to 1457 AH

In the Islamic calendar a day begins at sunset, so each Ramadan begins on the evening before the date in the table, and the first fast is on that date. The "Days" column is the length of Ramadan in the Umm al-Qura calendar; a country that waits for the crescent may count 30 days where the table has 29, or the reverse. The forecast for the first of these, with the crescent maps for the evenings around it, is in when does Ramadan start in 2027.

How the Calendar Decides, and Why Your Country May Differ

The Umm al-Qura calendar is computed in advance for Mecca. Its rule is short: on the 29th of a month, if the new moon (the conjunction) comes before sunset in Mecca and the Moon sets after the Sun, the next day begins a new month; otherwise the month has 30 days. The rule does not ask whether the crescent can actually be seen. How it came to be and how it is used is explained in the Umm al-Qura calendar explained.

The calendar is not the announcement. In Saudi Arabia the religious start of Ramadan is declared by the Supreme Court on the evening of 29 Sha'ban, from the reports of witnesses who have looked for the crescent. Other countries look for it themselves, accept a sighting from elsewhere, follow Saudi Arabia, or use a calculation of their own. So the first day of Ramadan can differ by a day between countries, and from the table. The reasons are set out in why Muslims start Ramadan on different days.

The New Moon and the Crescent Before Each Ramadan

Whether a sighting is possible on the evening of 29 Sha'ban decides whether countries that wait for the crescent are likely to agree with the table. We computed the crescent at sunset that evening in two places: in Mecca, the sky the calendar is computed for, and at the best place on Earth that evening, anywhere between 60 degrees south and 60 degrees north. The best place is always in the far west of the world map, near the date line in the Pacific, because sunset there is the last one of that date and the Moon is at its oldest. If even there the crescent cannot be seen, it cannot be seen anywhere that evening.

The zones are those of Yallop's criterion, as on the visibility map: A easily visible, B visible in clear skies, C optical aid helpful, D visible only with a telescope or binoculars, E not visible, and F when the Moon has already set before the Sun. The last column is the next evening in Mecca, when communities whose Sha'ban began a day later look for the crescent.

In eight of the ten years nobody can see the crescent on the 29th. In 1448 to 1450, 1452 and 1454 to 1457 the Moon has already set when the Sun sets in Mecca on the evening of 29 Sha'ban, and nowhere on Earth is the crescent better than Zone E. The calendar gives Sha'ban 30 days, and a country that looks for the crescent that evening will not see it either. Both reach the same first day of Ramadan, as long as they began Sha'ban on the same day.

Communities whose Sha'ban began a day later look on the next evening. From 2027 to 2030 the crescent in Mecca that evening is Zone C or B, within reach of a careful observer, and in 2032 it is Zone D. In 2033, 2034 and 2035 it is only Zone E in Mecca, so for those communities a start a day after the table is the more likely outcome.

In two years the calendar begins Ramadan after a 29-day Sha'ban, on an evening when the crescent cannot be seen from Mecca. In 1451 and 1453 the new moon comes early in the day (02:50 and 09:06 UTC), before sunset in Mecca, and the Moon sets after the Sun, so the rule is met. But the Moon is young and low: 5.4 degrees above the horizon at sunset on 4 January 2030, and 2.7 degrees on 14 December 2031, both Zone E.

• On 4 January 2030 the crescent is Zone E in Cairo, Istanbul, Karachi, Jakarta, London and Casablanca as well as Mecca, Zone D in New York and Zone B in Los Angeles. Odeh's criterion, a little more generous, puts Mecca at "optical aid only".
• On 14 December 2031 it is Zone E or worse in every one of those cities, Los Angeles and New York included, and its best anywhere on Earth is Zone B, in the Pacific near the date line.

So countries that need a sighting within their own region are likely to begin Ramadan a day after the table, on Sunday 6 January 2030 and Tuesday 16 December 2031.

And at the End: Eid al-Fitr

The same question decides Eid. In the five years in which the table gives Ramadan 29 days (1448, 1449, 1450, 1452 and 1454), the crescent in Mecca on the evening of 29 Ramadan is Zone E each time, and on 25 February 2028 it cannot be seen anywhere on Earth. Communities that need to see the crescent then complete 30 days and celebrate Eid a day after the table: on Wednesday 10 March 2027, Sunday 27 February 2028, Thursday 15 February 2029, Saturday 25 January 2031 and Monday 3 January 2033, if they began Ramadan on the same day as the table. In the other five years Ramadan has 30 days in the table and the Moon has already set in Mecca on the evening of the 29th, so the table and a sighting agree. The Eid of the first of these years is covered in Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha 2027.

Why Ramadan Comes About 11 Days Earlier Each Year

Twelve lunar months make a Hijri year of 354 or 355 days, against 365 or 366 for the Gregorian year. So each Ramadan begins earlier in the Gregorian year than the one before: by 10 to 12 days from one year to the next between 2027 and 2035, because months of 29 and 30 days do not fall evenly, and by 11.02 days on average over the ten years. Over about 33 years Ramadan goes once round the whole calendar and through every season.

Ramadan in Winter, and Twice in 2030

Every Ramadan from 2027 to 2032 begins between December and February, in the northern winter. These are the shortest fasting days of the cycle in Europe and North America and the longest in the southern hemisphere: the Ramadan that begins on 4 December 2032 has under 8 hours of daylight in London. The hours, city by city and year by year, are in Ramadan through the seasons.

The earliest point in the year comes in 2030: Ramadan begins on 5 January 2030, the only start in the first ten days of January until 1 January 2063. Because it keeps moving back, the next Ramadan begins on 26 December 2030, so two Ramadans begin in 2030. Three years later Eid al-Fitr falls on both 2 January and 23 December 2033, a year with two Eids, as explained in which years have two Eids. From 2033 Ramadan moves into the northern autumn: 23 November 2033, 12 November 2034 and 1 November 2035.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is Ramadan in 2028?

By the Umm al-Qura calendar Ramadan 1449 begins on Friday 28 January 2028 and lasts 29 days, with Eid al-Fitr on Saturday 26 February 2028. No crescent can be seen anywhere on the evening of 29 Sha'ban (26 January), so countries that look for it are expected to begin on the same day; for Eid, where the crescent cannot be seen anywhere on 25 February, they are expected to celebrate on Sunday 27 February.

Why might my country start Ramadan on a different day?

Because the start is decided by an announcement, not by the printed calendar. Countries differ in whether they need a sighting at all, whether it must be in their own country, and whose reports they accept. When the crescent is hard to see on the evening of the 29th, as on 4 January 2030 and 14 December 2031, those differences show up as a day's difference in the start of Ramadan.

Is Ramadan 29 or 30 days?

Either. Every Islamic month has 29 or 30 days, depending on when the next crescent appears or, in a calculated calendar, on the calendar's rule. In the Umm al-Qura calendar five of these ten Ramadans have 29 days (1448, 1449, 1450, 1452 and 1454) and five have 30.

Why does my phone show a different date?

Phones, browsers and many apps use a built-in version of the Umm al-Qura calendar (from the ICU library), which agrees with the published table up to 1452 AH and then drifts from it. For these years it puts 1 Ramadan 1453 on 16 December 2031 instead of 15 December, and Eid al-Fitr 1454 on 3 January 2033 instead of 2 January. The dates here come from the published table, which the calendar page uses too.

When will Ramadan be in summer again?

Ramadan begins in the northern summer, between June and August, in every year from 2041 to 2049: from 28 August 2041 to 2 June 2049, when it covers the longest days of the year.

See Also

• When does Ramadan start in 2027?
• Ramadan through the seasons
• Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha 2027
• Why Muslims start Ramadan on different days
• The Umm al-Qura calendar explained
• The calendar page for the dates of any month, and the visibility map for the crescent on any evening.

References

• Umm al-Qura dates from the table of the @umalqura/core library (version 0.0.7), the one the calendar page of this site uses. It covers 1318 to 1500 AH (30 April 1900 to 16 November 2077).
• New moons, sunsets and the crescent at sunset are computed with the astronomy engine of this site. The numbers are reproduced by docs/research/ramadan-dates.mjs and computed by packages/astronomy/src/ramadanDates.ts in the Hilal Vision source.
• Yallop, B. D. (1997). A Method for Predicting the First Sighting of the New Crescent Moon. NAO Technical Note No. 69, HM Nautical Almanac Office.
• Odeh, M. S. (2004). New Criterion for Lunar Crescent Visibility. Experimental Astronomy, 18, 39 to 64.