How many days are in a year?

Days, weekdays and working days by year

Working days are Monday to Friday, less the bank holidays in England and Wales. Every year from 2025 to 2030 has 8 of them, all on weekdays once substitute days are counted.

GOV.UK confirms bank holidays about two years ahead, so the 2028 to 2030 figures assume the usual rules and no extra one-off holidays. Scotland and Northern Ireland have different bank holidays (see UK bank holidays). For any other period, use the working days calculator.

Why 365, and sometimes 366?

The Earth takes about 365.2422 days to go round the Sun from one spring equinox to the next. That is the tropical year, and it is roughly 365 days, 5 hours and 49 minutes. A calendar of 365 days would drift by almost a day every four years, so the seasons would slowly move through the months.

The Julian calendar added a leap day every fourth year, which gave an average of 365.25 days. That was about 11 minutes too long. The Gregorian calendar, used in Britain since 1752, drops three leap days every 400 years: century years are only leap years if they divide by 400. Its average year is 365.2425 days, within about 27 seconds of the tropical year. The leap year page lists them all.

Days in each month

• 31 days: January, March, May, July, August, October, December.
• 30 days: April, June, September, November.
• 28 days: February, or 29 in a leap year.

The quickest check is the knuckle method: make two fists side by side and count the months across knuckles and the gaps between them. Knuckles are 31-day months, gaps are the shorter ones, and July and August sit on neighbouring knuckles. To find where today falls, see the day of the year.

Counting the days left

The figure at the top counts the days after today up to and including 31 December, in UK time. Add one if you want to include today. On 1 October 2026 there are 91 days left, which is exactly 13 weeks, and Christmas Day is the 85th of them.

Frequently asked questions