Halloween Countdown 2026

Halloween falls on 31 October, a fixed date that never moves, whatever day of the week it lands on. The countdown above follows your own time zone and runs to midnight on the night of 31 October, as 1 November 2026 begins.

Where Halloween comes from. It descends from Samhain, the end of the Celtic year and the turn into the dark season. When the Church set All Saints' Day on 1 November in the ninth century, the evening before became All Hallows' Eve, shortened to Halloween. Irish and Scottish emigrants carried it to North America in the nineteenth century, where it took the shape the rest of the world now recognises.

The pumpkin came second. In Ireland the lanterns were carved from turnips — smaller, and far harder to hollow out. The pumpkin, plentiful and soft, took over once the festival settled in the United States.

Trick-or-treating in its modern form is younger than most people assume: it spread across North America in the 1930s and 1940s, and the phrase only became common in print in that period.

Around the world

• Ireland and Scotland keep the older customs: bonfires, barmbrack, guising rather than trick-or-treating.
• Mexico's Day of the Dead runs 1–2 November and is a distinct festival, not a version of Halloween.
• In much of continental Europe Halloween arrived through commerce in the 1990s and sits alongside, not instead of, All Saints' Day.

Run this countdown full screen for a party, or create your own timer for any other date.