Diwali 2026–2027 — Date and Lakshmi Puja Muhurat for Your City

Diwali 2026 date: 08 November 2026, Sunday.

Lakshmi Puja muhurat in Delhi: 5:56 PM to 7:52 PM. Diwali puja time for Mumbai: 6:29 PM to 8:29 PM. Lakshmi Puja muhurat in Kolkata: 5:22 PM to 7:20 PM. Diwali puja time for Chennai: 6:09 PM to 8:10 PM. Lakshmi Puja muhurat in Bengaluru: 6:20 PM to 8:20 PM. Diwali puja time for Hyderabad: 6:09 PM to 8:11 PM. Lakshmi Puja muhurat in Ahmedabad: 6:25 PM to 8:23 PM. Diwali puja time for Pune: 6:26 PM to 8:26 PM. Lakshmi Puja muhurat in Jaipur: 6:04 PM to 8:00 PM. Diwali puja time for Lucknow: 5:44 PM to 7:40 PM. Lakshmi Puja muhurat in Kanpur: 5:47 PM to 7:43 PM. Diwali puja time for Patna: 5:29 PM to 7:27 PM.

The Diwali 2026 date is the amavasya of Kartik - the new moon that falls while the Sun moves through sidereal Libra. What makes it tricky is that the festival follows the evening, not the morning: Diwali is kept on the day the amavasya tithi is running at sunset, because Lakshmi puja belongs to the first part of the night.

That is why the Diwali 2026 date occasionally draws debate. When the amavasya begins in the afternoon of one day and runs past sunset the next, both evenings technically qualify. The rule used here, which matches the major almanacs, is the first evening on which amavasya prevails at pradosh.

The live card above gives the date, the exact start and end of the amavasya, sunset for your city, pradosh kaal, the Vrishabha window and the resulting Lakshmi Puja muhurat. Below it sits the Diwali puja time for twenty cities and the full five-day festival calendar.

The Lakshmi Puja muhurat is not a fixed hour. It is the overlap of three separate windows, and all three move with your location.

Pradosh kaal - the first fifth of the night after sunset. This is when Lakshmi is held to visit homes. Vrishabha kaal - the stretch when Taurus is rising. Taurus is a fixed sign, and wealth invited under a fixed sign is said to stay rather than pass through. Amavasya - the tithi itself must still be running.

Where all three overlap, you have the ideal Lakshmi Puja muhurat, usually a little over an hour. Where the Taurus window falls outside pradosh, the puja is done in pradosh alone. The card above shows each window separately, so you can see exactly how the Lakshmi Puja muhurat was reached for your city.

Business families often perform a second, simpler worship of the account books in the Lakshmi Puja muhurat as well - the chopda puja - opening the new year's ledger on this evening.

The Diwali puja time changes more between cities than most people expect. Sunset is later in the west, so Mumbai and Ahmedabad worship later than Kolkata and Patna. The rising Taurus lagna depends on latitude, which pulls northern and southern cities apart again.

That is why this page gives the Diwali muhurat city wise for twenty cities, each computed from its own coordinates. A Delhi muhurat applied in Chennai can be thirty or forty minutes off - enough to miss the Vrishabha window entirely.

If your city is not in the table, enter it in the form above and the full Diwali puja time will be computed for its exact latitude and longitude. The same is true for families abroad: the tithi is the same everywhere, but the local sunset and lagna are not, and the Diwali muhurat city wise approach is the only one that gives a correct answer outside India.

The Lakshmi puja vidhi at home is straightforward, and it does not need a priest.

1. Prepare the house. Clean it thoroughly during the day, draw rangoli at the entrance, and place lamps at the door and windows.

2. Set up the altar. On a red or yellow cloth over a raised platform, place Lakshmi with Ganesha on her left. Add a kalash of water with mango leaves and a coconut, coins, a small heap of rice, and your account books or valuables.

3. Begin with Ganesha. Every puja opens with him - roli, rice, flowers and a sweet.

4. Worship Lakshmi. Inside the muhurat, offer flowers, kumkum, rice, sweets, fruit and lotus seeds, recite the Lakshmi aarti or Shri Sukta, and wave the lamp.

5. Light the lamps. Take the flame from the altar to light lamps through the house.

6. Through the night. A lamp is kept burning until morning, and the main door is often left slightly open for Lakshmi to enter.

Followed inside the muhurat, this Lakshmi puja vidhi at home is complete in about forty minutes, which leaves the rest of the evening for family and the festival itself.

Pradosh kaal on Diwali is the window that decides the day. It is defined as the first fifth of the night - from sunset to about two and a half hours after - and it is when Lakshmi puja is traditionally performed. If amavasya is not running during pradosh kaal on a given evening, that evening is not Diwali, whatever the calendar date.

The length of pradosh kaal on Diwali changes with the season and latitude, since it depends on the length of the night. The card above computes it from your own sunset and the next sunrise rather than using a fixed two-hour figure.

Nishita kaal is the second window - the muhurat around local midnight. It is used for Kali puja, particularly in Bengal, and by those performing tantric worship of Lakshmi. Most households do not use it, but it is given for completeness.

Diwali is the centre of a five-day sequence. It opens with Dhanteras on trayodashi, when metal and gold are bought. Narak Chaturdashi, also called Choti Diwali, follows with an early bath and lamps for Yama. The third day is Lakshmi Puja itself.

The day after is Govardhan Puja and Annakut, when mountains of food are offered to Krishna, and in Gujarat the new year begins. The fifth day is Bhai Dooj, when sisters apply tilak to their brothers. Chhath follows six days later in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Every date in the sequence is in the table above, computed for the year you choose.

1. The amavasya. The Moon's elongation from the Sun is tracked with the Swiss Ephemeris; the Kartik amavasya is found to the minute.

2. The evening. The first day on which amavasya prevails at your sunset becomes the Diwali date.

3. The three windows. Pradosh from your sunset and next sunrise; Vrishabha from the rising sidereal ascendant at your latitude; amavasya from the tithi. Their overlap is the muhurat.

Offices and schools fix their holidays around the Diwali 2026 date well in advance. The Diwali 2026 date also sets Dhanteras two days before and Bhai Dooj two days after. Traders open new account books on the evening of the Diwali 2026 date.

Families travelling home plan their journeys backwards from the Diwali 2026 date. Sweet shops plan their largest stock of the year around the Diwali 2026 date. The Diwali puja time for most Indian cities falls between six and nine in the evening.

Families abroad should use the Diwali puja time for their own city, not the Indian one. The Lakshmi puja vidhi at home needs nothing more than a clean altar, lamps and flowers. Children usually learn the Lakshmi puja vidhi at home by helping with the rangoli and lamps.

Checking the Diwali muhurat city wise matters most for families split across cities. A Diwali muhurat city wise table is the only reliable way to plan a joint video call puja. The Diwali muhurat city wise differs most between the far east and far west of India.

Temples publish their own Diwali muhurat city wise, and it usually matches the local sunset. The Diwali muhurat city wise table above covers every major metro. Pradosh kaal on Diwali is longer in the north in winter because nights are longer.

If you can only manage a short puja, keep it inside pradosh kaal on Diwali. Pradosh kaal on Diwali begins at sunset, so it is later in western cities. The lamps at the door are traditionally lit as pradosh kaal on Diwali begins.