When Is Thanksgiving 2026? Date, and Why It Moves Every Year

If you are asking when is Thanksgiving 2026, in the US the answer is Thursday, 26 November, the fourth Thursday of November. Canada celebrates its own Thanksgiving much earlier, on Monday, 12 October 2026, the second Monday of October. Both are real Thanksgivings, just built on different rules, which is why a family with relatives on both sides of the border ends up celebrating twice.

Here is when the day falls over the next few years, why the date is not a fixed number, and one thing worth doing while everyone is already around the table.

When is Thanksgiving 2026, and in 2027 and 2028?

In the United States, Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday of November:

• 2026: Thursday, 26 November
• 2027: Thursday, 25 November
• 2028: Thursday, 23 November

In Canada, Thanksgiving is the second Monday of October, more than a month earlier:

• 2026: Monday, 12 October
• 2027: Monday, 11 October
• 2028: Monday, 9 October

Both dates shift by a few days each year because they are tied to a weekday, not a calendar number. The US date can land anywhere from 22 to 28 November, and the Canadian date anywhere from 8 to 14 October.

Why do the US and Canada celebrate on different days?

The US date goes back to a 1941 congressional resolution that fixed Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday of November, after decades of presidents shifting it around for the shopping season. Canada's holiday is older and tied to its earlier harvest, with the growing season further north wrapping up well before the US date, so the second Monday of October made more practical sense and stuck as the legal date since 1957.

A table is also a chance to gather what everyone keeps meaning to sort

Thanksgiving is one of the rare days when scattered relatives are in the same room, which makes it a good excuse to do the thing that otherwise never happens: pull out the old shoebox and ask who is in each photo while someone can still answer. You do not need to organize anything on the day itself, just set the box on a side table and let people pick through it between dishes.

If the day turns up prints worth keeping, our guide on dating old family photos helps place the ones nobody labeled, and turning old photos into a video walks through what to do with them afterward. For the next family occasion on the calendar, the same date logic that applies here applies to Grandparents Day and the winter holidays.