When is Ganesh Chaturthi?
Ganesh Chaturthi 2026 falls on Monday, 14 September 2026.
35 days from today.
Ganesh Chaturthi is judged at madhyahna — solar midday — because the murti sthapana is a midday rite. That is a different question from which morning the Chaturthi tithi happens to begin on.
Dates by year
| Year | Date | Day |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 7 September 2024 | Saturday |
| 2025 | 27 August 2025 | Wednesday |
| 2026 | 14 September 2026 | Monday |
| 2027 | 4 September 2027 | Saturday |
| 2028 | 23 August 2028 | Wednesday |
| 2029 | 11 September 2029 | Tuesday |
| 2030 | 1 September 2030 | Sunday |
| 2031 | 20 September 2031 | Saturday |
| 2032 | 8 September 2032 | Wednesday |
| 2033 | 28 August 2033 | Sunday |
| 2034 | 16 September 2034 | Saturday |
How the date is decided
Ganesh Chaturthi is Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturthi — the fourth tithi of the waxing fortnight of Bhadrapada.
The condition that fixes the civil day is the vyapini reference, and here it is madhyahna: solar midday, the midpoint between sunrise and sunset. It is not noon on the clock, and on most days it is not 12:00 local time either.
The reason is the rite. Sthapana — installing the murti — belongs to the madhyahna period, so the useful question is not “which morning did Chaturthi start on” but “which midday is running under Chaturthi”. Those two questions give different answers surprisingly often, because a tithi is roughly 19 to 26 hours long and drifts against the civil day by a few hours each time.
The madhyahna group
Ganesh Chaturthi belongs to a family of observances that share this reference, and they share it for the same reason — each has a midday rite at its centre:
| Observance | Tithi | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Ram Navami | Chaitra Shukla Navami | madhyahna |
| Akshaya Tritiya | Vaishakha Shukla Tritiya | madhyahna |
| Ganesh Chaturthi | Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturthi | madhyahna |
| Durga Ashtami | Ashwin Shukla Ashtami | madhyahna |
| Hartalika Teej | Bhadrapada Shukla Tritiya | madhyahna |
Knowing which group a festival belongs to explains most published-date disagreements without any astronomy: two calendars computing identical tithi times will still differ by a day if one of them judges at sunrise.
The ten days are not counted off
The festival runs to visarjan on Anant Chaturdashi, and it is natural to assume the calendar adds ten days to Ganesh Chaturthi to find it. It does not. Anant Chaturdashi is its own rule — Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturdashi, judged at sunrise rather than midday.
Two independent rules with different references mean the interval is an output. Ten days is the usual result. It is not a constant, and a year in which it is nine or eleven is the calendar working correctly rather than failing.
Leap months
Major festivals are suppressed inside an Adhika, or intercalary, lunar month. If a leap Bhadrapada occurs, Ganesh Chaturthi is not observed in it; it falls in the true Bhadrapada that follows. This is why the date can appear to jump by a month between consecutive years in the table above rather than drifting steadily earlier.
What we do not compute
We fix the day. We do not compute the sthapana muhurat within the madhyahna period, the regional pandal conventions, or the one-and-a-half, five and seven day visarjan schedules families keep. For picking an hour, the choghadiya and the day’s full panchang give you midday, sunrise, sunset and the exact tithi boundaries for your own city.
Frequently asked questions
Why midday rather than sunrise?
Because the installation of the murti is prescribed for the madhyahna period. The day that matters is therefore the day whose midday falls under Chaturthi. A tithi beginning at four in the afternoon has not given that day a madhyahna under Chaturthi, so the festival goes to the next one.
What is the difference from Vinayaka Chaturthi?
Vinayaka Chaturthi is the monthly observance on the Shukla Chaturthi of every lunar month, judged at midday on the same rule. Ganesh Chaturthi is the Bhadrapada one. When it fires, the monthly entry is suppressed so the day is not listed twice.
When is Anant Chaturdashi, the visarjan day?
Anant Chaturdashi is Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturdashi, ten tithis later, judged at sunrise rather than midday. Because the two use different references and tithis vary in length, the gap in civil days is usually ten but not fixed.
Is it true you should not look at the Moon on this day?
That is the well-known convention around Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturthi. It is a customary observance rather than something the calendar computes, so we note it and do not attach a window to it.
See the full panchang for that day
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