Why does Easter Sunday change dates each year?

Easter Sunday is not tied to a fixed calendar date, so it lands on a different day each year. Over the next ten years it most often falls on a Sunday.

What day of the week is Easter Sunday usually on?

Over the next ten years, Easter Sunday falls on a Sunday most often.

When is Easter Sunday 2027? Date & Next 10 Years

Q: When is Easter Sunday 2027?

Easter Sunday 2027 is on Sunday, March 28, 2027.

Easter is a moveable feast: it falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the spring equinox, so its date changes every year. In 2027 it falls on day 87 of the year, in ISO week 12, during March 2027 (see all March 2027 holidays).

Year	Date	Day of Week
2026	April 5, 2026	Sunday
2027	March 28, 2027	Sunday
2028	April 16, 2028	Sunday
2029	April 1, 2029	Sunday
2030	April 21, 2030	Sunday
2031	April 13, 2031	Sunday
2032	March 28, 2032	Sunday
2033	April 17, 2033	Sunday
2034	April 9, 2034	Sunday
2035	March 25, 2035	Sunday

How the Date Is Determined

Easter moves every year because it follows the moon, not a fixed date.

Easter has the trickiest date rule of any major American holiday. Western churches hold it on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21. They use an ecclesiastical full moon, meaning the church's set full-moon date, not the real one in the sky. The formula behind this is called the computus (the church's method for finding the Easter date). It was made standard after the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Because of the rule, Easter can land anywhere from March 22 to April 25. Eastern Orthodox churches use the older Julian calendar for the same rule. So Orthodox Easter usually falls one to five weeks later. Easter is always a Sunday, so it is not a federal holiday and needs no observed date.

History

Easter is the oldest Christian festival. It celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. Its English name likely comes from Eostre, a Germanic spring figure. Many American customs came with German immigrants. The Pennsylvania Dutch brought the egg-laying "Osterhase" hare in the 1700s. That hare is the ancestor of the Easter Bunny. The White House Easter Egg Roll began in 1878 under President Rutherford B. Hayes. It is still the White House's largest public event each year.

Traditions and Celebrations

American Easter mixes religious worship with springtime family traditions:

Sunrise services and the year's highest church attendance.
Egg hunts, egg dyeing, and Easter baskets filled with chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, and marshmallow Peeps.
A family dinner built around ham or lamb.
New spring outfits, the custom behind New York's Fifth Avenue Easter Parade.

The candy numbers are huge. Americans buy about 90 million chocolate bunnies and 1.5 billion Peeps each spring. That makes Easter second only to Halloween for candy sales. Easter lilies also come from European tradition. They fill churches and grocery stores through Holy Week.

Planning Around Easter

Easter falls on a Sunday, so most closures happen around it instead. Many school districts line up spring break with Holy Week. Markets close on Good Friday. Some businesses shorten their hours on Easter itself, including most major grocery and retail chains. The date can move by as much as five weeks. So check it early when you plan travel. The 2026 holidays calendar lists it next to every other holiday.

When is Easter Sunday?

Easter Sunday — Next 10 Years

Other Holidays