Hanukkah 2026:
eight nights, and a date that looks like two.

Hanukkah 2026 dates: the eight nights

The candles are lit on a hanukkiah, a nine-branched holder: eight branches for the eight nights and a ninth, the shamash or helper candle. The shamash is lit first and is the one used to light the others. The candles lit on earlier nights are left to burn out on their own rather than being put out.

Hanukkah is eight nights and eight days. The last day runs until nightfall on Saturday, December 12 — the day after the eighth candle is lit. Gifts are traditionally given on the eighth night, which in 2026 means Friday, December 11.

When does Hanukkah start in 2026?

A Jewish calendar day begins at sunset the evening before and ends at nightfall the next evening. That single rule explains the confusion:

• Friday, December 4 is the evening of the first day (25 Kislev). The first candle is lit before sundown, which is why the lighting happens while it is still light outside.
• Saturday, December 5 is therefore the first full calendar day of Hanukkah, and this is the date most printed calendars print as "the first day".

Both dates appear in published calendars, and neither is wrong. Hebcal lists the first candle on Friday December 4 and the first day on Saturday December 5. If you are checking a calendar, a school holiday list or a friend's plans, this is the reason they may differ from what you expected.

The same rule is why Shabbat, Passover and Yom Kippur all begin on the evening before the date they are named after. It is also why the last day is December 12 and not December 11.

Two practical notes for 2026. The first two nights fall over a weekend, so if you are hosting, the Friday and Saturday evenings are the ones to plan around. And the eighth night, December 11, is a Friday — the last evening of the holiday doubles as a Friday dinner for many households.

The first night: Friday, December 4

1. Before sundown, set out the hanukkiah and the shamash. The first candle is placed in the first branch and lit after the blessings.
2. One candle is lit on the first night. That is the whole ritual — a second candle is added the following evening, not all at once.
3. Look up sunset for your city rather than a fixed clock time. It shifts by a few minutes a day and by more than an hour across the country and the season.

Alongside the candles, the other things families do on Hanukkah evenings are lighting a dreidel and playing a game of dreidel, eating foods fried or baked in oil such as latkes and sufganiot, and giving gifts on the final night. The oil food is not decoration: the holiday commemorates the Maccabees’ rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem, when a single flask of oil famously burned for eight days instead of one.

The last night: Friday, December 11

On the eighth night all eight branches are lit, which is the night the holiday reaches its full display and the traditional night for giving gifts. It falls on Friday, December 11, 2026, and the eighth day continues until nightfall on Saturday, December 12.

If you are planning a gathering around the end of Hanukkah in 2026, this is the date to plan for. The holiday also ends the same week as Christmas, which falls on Friday, December 25 — two weeks later.

Hanukkah dates for 2026 and 2027

2027 is the unusual one: Hanukkah starts on December 24 and runs into January, so it overlaps Christmas entirely and takes in two Shabbatot and New Year’s Day. If you are booking travel or a venue for late December 2027, that week is the one to check.

The reason the dates drift is the Hebrew calendar, which follows a lunar cycle. A year of 353 days leaves Hanukkah in November; a year of 384 pushes it into late December. That is also why the holiday can never be pinned to a Gregorian date the way Christmas can.

If you are making something

A Hanukkah card, a printable eight-night calendar and a photo for the family album all come down to the same file work:

• Print at 300 DPI. A Letter sheet is 2,550 × 3,300 pixels, a 5 × 7 inch card is 1,500 × 2,100. The DPI calculator tells you what you need if you are working from an existing image.
• Do not upscale for the screen. A social post wants 1080 × 1350 for Instagram portrait or 1200 × 630 for a link preview. Crop and the bulk resizer make those sizes from one original.
• Keep the file small enough to send. The image compressor runs in your browser, so the photo never gets uploaded to shrink it. A holiday card over email goes well under the Gmail attachment limit once it is compressed.
• A QR code on a printed card can point at a photo album or a greeting page instead of a long printed URL. The QR code generator makes one you can drop into the design.

We do not have a menorah graphic or a candle illustration, and we would rather say so than ship a bad one. What we do have is the file work: the sizes, the compression and the code.