Somewhere around the end of December, everyone starts asking how long it’s until midnight. A countdown answers that straight away.
This New Year countdown reads the clock on your own device, so it uses your time zone without you having to set anything. It always counts down to the next New Year, not a fixed year that goes out of date, and you can switch it to Christmas, Valentine’s Day or Halloween.
How to use the New Year Countdown#
- Pick the date. Choose New Year, Christmas, Valentine’s Day or Halloween.
- The result refreshes when you change an option or return to the tab. There’s nothing else to enter.
- Read the breakdown. See the time left as days, hours and minutes, in weeks, and the weekday it falls on.
How the countdown works#
It takes the next midnight at the start of the date you chose, in your local time, and subtracts the current time. If you pick New Year, that’s 00:00 on 1 January of next year. If you pick a date that has already passed this year, such as Halloween on 1 November, it counts to next year’s.
On the day itself, it stops counting and tells you it’s today.
Why it can differ from other countdowns#
New Year doesn’t arrive everywhere at once. A countdown that uses a different time zone from yours will be hours off. This one follows your device, so if your phone or computer clock is right, so is the countdown. If you’re travelling or your clock is set wrongly, check your system time zone first.
Where New Year arrives first#
The date line makes the world’s celebrations arrive in a long relay. The Line Islands of Kiribati, at UTC+14, see the new year first, and the uninhabited Baker and Howland Islands, at UTC−12, are the last. For a few well-known places, this is how many hours after Kiribati the new year reaches them (using each place’s standard or summer time on 1 January):
| Place | Time zone | Hours after Kiribati |
|---|---|---|
| Auckland | UTC+13 | 1 |
| Sydney | UTC+11 | 3 |
| Tokyo | UTC+9 | 5 |
| Lagos | UTC+1 | 13 |
| London | UTC+0 | 14 |
| New York | UTC−5 | 19 |
| Los Angeles | UTC−8 | 22 |
Counting in different units#
The same number reads differently depending on the unit. With 100 days to go you have 2,400 hours, 144,000 minutes or 8.64 million seconds. If it feels far away, count it in weeks. If you’re short on time, the minutes make it feel urgent. The calculator shows days, hours and minutes so you can pick whichever motivates you.
Make good use of it#
A countdown is a handy deadline. If you want to finish a project, save a sum of money or build a habit before the year turns, divide the days left by the amount you need to do and you have a daily target. For money goals, try the interest rate calculator to see what your savings could earn in the meantime.
Resolutions with a deadline#
A countdown to midnight can also be the start of a year-long plan. A goal with a date, a number and a first step tends to survive longer than a vague wish. If you want to save money, work out the monthly sum. If you want to run a race, work out the training weeks. Our pace calculator turns a race goal into a target pace, and the compound interest calculator shows what a monthly saving grows into.
Frequently asked questions#
The countdown above is based on your device clock and time zone. It always counts to the next 1 January.
Because you’re in different time zones. Each countdown measures to midnight in its own local time.
The Line Islands of Kiribati, at UTC+14, see it first. The Baker and Howland Islands, at UTC−12, see it last.
Yes, once the page is loaded. It uses your device clock, so it doesn’t need a connection.
You can switch it to Christmas Day, Valentine’s Day or Halloween with the menu.
Because the Earth is divided into time zones, midnight reaches different places at different times. Kiribati’s Line Islands, at UTC+14, are first, and Baker Island, at UTC−12, is last, 26 hours later. Lagos reaches midnight 13 hours after Kiribati, and New York 19 hours after.
The countdown uses your device’s clock and time zone, so if either is wrong, the result is off. Check your phone or computer’s date and time settings, and make sure automatic time is on. If you travel, the countdown switches to the new time zone once your device does.