When Is Mother's Day 2027? Dates by Country, Explained

If you are asking when is Mother's Day, the answer depends on where your mother lives. In the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and most of the world, it is the second Sunday of May, which makes it Sunday, 9 May 2027. In the UK and Ireland it is Mothering Sunday, a church date tied to Easter, which puts it on Sunday, 7 March 2027, a full two months earlier.

That gap catches out a lot of families, especially ones spread across countries. Here is the full picture, plus the one thing worth doing before the date arrives.

When is Mother's Day in 2027, 2028, and 2029?

For the US, Canada, Australia, and everywhere else that follows the second Sunday of May:

• 2027: Sunday, 9 May
• 2028: Sunday, 14 May
• 2029: Sunday, 13 May

For the UK and Ireland, where Mothering Sunday falls three weeks before Easter:

• 2027: Sunday, 7 March
• 2028: Sunday, 26 March
• 2029: Sunday, 11 March

The May date moves by a few days each year and never lands on the same number twice in a row. The UK date swings much further, because Easter itself moves by up to a month. If you only remember one thing, remember "second Sunday in May" for most of the world and "check Easter" for Britain.

Mother's Day around the world

Most English-speaking countries share the May date, but plenty do not. Here is how the most-searched countries compare.

If your country is not listed, the second Sunday of May is the safe default, since it is by far the most common date worldwide.

Why the date moves at all

The May date is American in origin. Anna Jarvis held the first Mother's Day service in West Virginia in 1908, and the US made it a national holiday in 1914. Most of the world copied that version through the twentieth century, which is why the second Sunday of May is now the global default.

Britain never needed to. Mothering Sunday already existed as a religious date, the fourth Sunday of Lent, when people returned to their mother church. Because Lent is calculated from Easter, and Easter is calculated from the first full moon after the spring equinox, the British date wanders between early March and early April. The two traditions merged in name only, which is why a family split between London and Chicago celebrates twice.

Give her something she has not seen before

The date is the easy part. The hard part is finding something she will actually keep, which almost never comes from a shop. Most mothers already have the mug, the candle, and the flowers that die by Thursday. What they usually do not have is the photographs from their own life, in a form anyone can watch.

That is worth planning around, because it takes longer than a same-day order. If you want to gather old prints from relatives, scan them, and set them to music, give yourself two weeks. If you would rather see the quality before committing, a free First Look turns three of your photos into a short sample, so you know what it looks like before the date. For more ideas along the same line, we wrote a guide to gifts for a mom who says she wants nothing, and the same date logic applies to Father's Day later in the year.