What day of the year is it?

Counting the days

The day of the year, also called the ordinal date, numbers the days from 1 on 1 January to 365 on 31 December — or 366 in a leap year. ISO 8601 writes it as year and day, so 9 October 2026 is 2026-282. It is handy for anything that runs on a daily cycle: crop and laboratory logs, batch and lot codes, satellite data files, and counting down to a deadline.

To work it out by hand, add up the days in the months already finished and then add today's date. The month lengths are 31, 28 (29), 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31. For 9 October in a common year: 31 + 28 + 31 + 30 + 31 + 30 + 31 + 31 + 30 = 273 days in January to September, plus 9 = 282.

Leap years

A year is a leap year if it is divisible by 4, unless it is divisible by 100 and not by 400. So 2024 and 2028 are leap years, 2100 is not, and 2000 was. The rule keeps the calendar year within a day of the solar year for thousands of years; it was introduced with the Gregorian calendar in 1582.

Questions and answers

What day of the year is it today?

The number at the top of this page is today's day of the year in your time zone, counting 1 January as day 1.

How many days are left in the year?

The page shows it next to the day number: the days after today until 31 December. In a common year that is 365 minus today's day number; in a leap year, 366 minus it.

Is the day of the year the same as a Julian date?

Not really. People often call the day-of-year number a “Julian date”, especially in manufacturing and the military (for example 26282 for the 282nd day of 2026). Astronomers' Julian Day Number is something else: a continuous count of days since 4713 BC, around 2.46 million today.

How do I calculate it in a spreadsheet?

In Excel or Google Sheets, with a date in A1: =A1-DATE(YEAR(A1),1,0). Format the result as a number, not a date.

Which day is the middle of the year?

In a common year, 2 July is day 183, with 182 days before and after it. In a leap year the middle falls between 1 and 2 July.