Ekadashi — Next Dates, Exact Tithi Times and Why There Are 25 a Year

When is the next Ekadashi? Both fortnights merged into one computed series with exact tithi start and end instants, the measured interval between occurrences, and why the annual count is usually twenty-five rather than twenty-four.

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Ekadashi is the eleventh lunar day, and it occurs twice in each lunar month — once in the waxing fortnight and once in the waning one. That doubling is what makes it the most frequently observed fast in the Hindu calendar, and it is also the reason the interval between one Ekadashi and the next is a fortnight rather than a month.

The next Ekadashi falls on Sun 23 Aug 2026, opening at 01:50 on 23 Aug and ending at 04:10 on 24 Aug (New Delhi sunrise, IST (UTC+5:30)).

Almost every page about Ekadashi opens by saying there are twenty-four in a year. Counted on a real ephemeris, that is true about one year in four; the rest have twenty-five. This page counts them rather than repeating the figure, and shows the arithmetic that makes it come out uneven.

The table recomputes each time this page is built or opened, so it is a rolling answer to “when is the next one” rather than a stored list for a single year.

The next sixteen Ekadashis

Both fortnights are shown in one series — bright (Shukla) and dark (Krishna) alternating. Start and end are the exact instants the tithi opens and closes, in New Delhi wall-clock time.

Date	Tithi starts	Tithi ends	Length
Sun 23 Aug 2026	01:50 on 23 Aug	04:10 on 24 Aug	26.3 h
Mon 7 Sep 2026	19:34 on 6 Sep	17:10 on 7 Sep	21.6 h
Tue 22 Sep 2026	19:57 on 21 Sep	21:43 on 22 Sep	25.8 h
Tue 6 Oct 2026	02:08 on 6 Oct	00:36 on 7 Oct	22.5 h
Thu 22 Oct 2026	14:19 on 21 Oct	14:57 on 22 Oct	24.6 h
Thu 5 Nov 2026	11:02 on 4 Nov	10:36 on 5 Nov	23.6 h
Sat 21 Nov 2026 No reference sunrise falls inside this window — calendars may differ by a day	07:23 on 20 Nov	06:38 on 21 Nov	23.2 h
Fri 4 Dec 2026	23:06 on 3 Dec	23:50 on 4 Dec	24.7 h
Sun 20 Dec 2026	22:04 on 19 Dec	20:06 on 20 Dec	22.0 h
Sun 3 Jan 2027	14:32 on 2 Jan	16:19 on 3 Jan	25.8 h
Tue 19 Jan 2027	10:08 on 18 Jan	07:27 on 19 Jan	21.3 h
Tue 2 Feb 2027	08:51 on 1 Feb	11:21 on 2 Feb	26.5 h
Wed 17 Feb 2027	19:57 on 16 Feb	17:06 on 17 Feb	21.1 h
Wed 3 Mar 2027	04:52 on 3 Mar	07:32 on 4 Mar	26.7 h
Thu 18 Mar 2027	04:07 on 18 Mar	01:33 on 19 Mar	21.4 h
Fri 2 Apr 2027	00:56 on 2 Apr	03:00 on 3 Apr	26.1 h

Computed 2026-08-08 · dates resolved for New Delhi sunrise, IST (UTC+5:30).

What the numbers actually say

Measured over 119 consecutive intervals from 2026-08-08, one Ekadashi to the next falls between 13.568 and 15.956 days apart, averaging 14.762 days.

Across the same 120 windows the tithi itself runs from 20.98 to 26.81 hours, averaging 23.77 — and 65 of the 120 are shorter than a civil day, which is why a lunar day and a calendar day drift apart.

Occurrences per calendar year over the computed span — 2027: 25 · 2028: 25 · 2029: 25 · 2030: 24.

5 of the 120 windows in this sample carried no reference sunrise at all — those are the dates on which two panchangs can legitimately disagree.

Why the count is not twenty-four

Two Ekadashis per lunar month, twelve lunar months, twenty-four a year — the arithmetic is clean and the premise is wrong. A lunar month is just under 29.53 days, so twelve of them come to about 354 days: eleven days short of a calendar year. Those eleven days are enough that a thirteenth Ekadashi of one kind routinely lands inside the same January-to-December window, and the count comes out at twenty-five.

That same eleven-day shortfall is what the Hindu calendar absorbs with an intercalary month (adhika maasa) roughly every third year, which is why a lunar year and a solar year stay loosely aligned over the long run while never matching in any given year.

The page counts the occurrences it computes for the years it spans, rather than dividing 365 by anything. If the count for a year reads twenty-five, that is not an error — it is the calendar behaving as it actually does.

A fortnight that is not fourteen days

Because Ekadashi is two different tithis interleaved, the gap between consecutive occurrences is the gap between the eleventh tithi of one fortnight and the eleventh of the next — and that is not a fixed span. Across the intervals this page measures, it ranges over more than two days: sometimes under fourteen, sometimes close to sixteen.

The cause is the same elliptical orbit that makes individual tithis unequal in length. Where the Moon is moving fast it clears twelve degrees quickly and the tithis are short, so a whole fortnight of them compresses; where it is slow, the fortnight stretches. Averaged over many cycles the interval settles near 14.8 days, but no single interval is obliged to be that.

This matters practically: an Ekadashi fast is usually broken during the following tithi (Dwadashi), inside a specific window. Because the tithi lengths move, that window moves with them — which is why the parana time is published per occurrence rather than as a rule of thumb.

When two Ekadashi dates appear back to back

Occasionally a calendar shows Ekadashi on two consecutive days. That is not a mistake and not a second Ekadashi — it is one tithi whose window is long enough, or positioned such, that two different resolution rules pick different days, and the publisher prints both so that each tradition can find its own.

The distinction usually runs between smarta and vaishnava observance, and it turns on whether a trace of the previous tithi was still running at sunrise. This page does not compute which side of that a given occurrence falls on, and it will not guess: it prints the exact window and marks the rows where the primary sunrise rule does not resolve cleanly, so you can take the ambiguity to whichever tradition you actually follow.

What the day is used for

Ekadashi is the principal fasting day of the Vaishnava calendar, kept as a full or partial abstention from grains and pulses, and traditionally spent in reading, chanting and rest rather than in exertion. The fast is broken in the Dwadashi window that follows, which is why the end instant of the tithi matters as much as the date.

Nothing about the day is personal. It is the same eleventh tithi for everyone alive, and it carries no information that could distinguish one person from another — a point worth holding on to when a page offers to tell you what this Ekadashi means *for you*. That reading has to come from a birth chart.

Ekadashi — frequently asked

When is the next Ekadashi?

The first row of the table above, with the exact instants the tithi opens and closes in New Delhi time. Both fortnights are merged into one series, so the next row is genuinely the next occurrence and not the next one of a single kind.

How many Ekadashis are there in a year?

Usually twenty-five, not the twenty-four almost every source repeats. Twelve lunar months come to about 354 days, eleven short of a calendar year, and that shortfall is enough to fit an extra occurrence into most January-to-December windows. This page counts them rather than dividing.

Why do two Ekadashi dates sometimes appear on consecutive days?

It is one tithi with two resolutions, not two Ekadashis. Where a trace of the previous tithi is still running at sunrise, smarta and vaishnava conventions choose different days, and publishers print both. This page marks rows where the primary sunrise rule does not resolve cleanly rather than picking one for you.

How many days apart is one Ekadashi from the next?

Between roughly 13.6 and 16 days across the intervals measured here, averaging about 14.8. It is not a fixed fortnight, because the Moon covers the twelve degrees of a tithi faster in some parts of its orbit than others.

Why is Ekadashi twice a month when other tithis are once?

Every tithi number occurs twice a month — once in the waxing fortnight and once in the waning one. Amavasya and Purnima are the exceptions, because they sit at the two boundaries and only happen once each. Ekadashi is the ordinary case; it just happens to be the one that is widely observed in both fortnights.

When do I break the Ekadashi fast?

In the Dwadashi window that follows the Ekadashi tithi ends — which is why the end instant in the table matters more than the date. The exact parana window depends on your own sunrise, so take the end instant here and apply it against your local sunrise rather than using a reference-city time.

What this page cannot tell you

• A tithi is the same for every person on Earth that day. Nothing here is personal, and this page will not pretend a shared lunar day knows anything about you.
• It does not tell you which day of a two-day pair your tradition fasts on. That depends on the dwadashi-viddha rules and on your sampradaya, neither of which this page computes — it marks the ambiguous rows instead of resolving them for you.
• It does not publish parana (fast-breaking) times. Those depend on the Dwadashi window and on your own sunrise, not on the reference meridian used here.
• It does not name the twenty-four Ekadashis. Mapping an occurrence to Nirjala or Devshayani needs the lunar-month rules this page does not run.
• Dates resolve for New Delhi sunrise; the tithi window itself is universal. Away from that meridian, read the start and end instants rather than the date.

The other lunar days

• Amavasya dates (new moon) — When is the next Amavasya, and why does my calendar sometimes print a different date from someone else’s?
• Purnima dates (full moon) — When is the next Purnima, how long is the full-moon tithi actually full, and how far is it from the new moon that follows?
• Today’s panchang — tithi, nakshatra and muhurat computed for your own city rather than the reference meridian.

Positions from the shared Lahiri-sidereal ephemeris; sunrise by the NOAA solar calculator. Prose last reviewed 2026-08-08; every figure above is computed, not stored. How AskSoma computes things.