Sankranti Dates 2026–2027 — All Twelve, With Punya Kaal Timing

The Sun takes about a year to travel through the twelve signs, spending roughly a month in each. The moment it crosses a boundary is a sankranti, and there are twelve of them in a year. The sankranti dates 2027 table above gives the all 12 sankranti dates with the exact minute of the crossing for your city.

Unlike almost every other Hindu festival, sankrantis are solar rather than lunar. That is why Makar Sankranti sits in mid-January every year while Diwali and Holi move across a month. It is also why the sun transit dates 2027 are almost identical to those of any other year, shifting by only a day as the calendar drifts.

Each sankranti carries its own regional festival, its own charity and its own agricultural meaning. Together these sun transit dates form the solar skeleton on which the lunar festivals hang.

Here is the all 12 sankranti list with the month each falls in and what it is known for regionally.

Four of the all 12 sankranti dates carry more weight than the rest. Makar and Karka mark the two ayanas - the turning points of the Sun's northward and southward journeys. Mesh opens the solar new year across most of India. And Dhanu and Meen each begin Kharmas, closing the wedding calendar for a month.

The rest are observed quietly, mainly through a bath and a donation suited to the season - sesame and jaggery in winter, water and shade in summer, grain after the harvest.

The makar sankranti date and punya kaal draw more attention than any other transit, and with reason. Makar Sankranti marks the beginning of Uttarayana, when the Sun turns north - a period the Mahabharata treats as so auspicious that Bhishma waited on his bed of arrows for it before leaving his body.

It is celebrated under different names across the country on the same day: Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Lohri the evening before in Punjab, Magh Bihu in Assam, Uttarayan in Gujarat with its kite festival, and Khichdi in Uttar Pradesh. Sesame and jaggery are eaten and given in charity everywhere - the til-gud of Maharashtra, the tilkut of Bihar.

The punya kaal on Makar Sankranti is the stretch in which bathing and donation carry the most merit, and it depends on whether the transit falls during the day or at night. Where it falls after sunset, the punya kaal moves to the following morning. The table on this page handles that automatically for your city, which is why the times differ from a national almanac.

The sankranti punya kaal timing follows a rule rather than a fixed clock. The transit itself is an instant; the punya kaal is the window around it, usually taken as four hours before and after when the transit falls in daylight.

Within that sits the maha punya kaal - a tighter window of roughly ninety minutes either side of the exact moment, considered the most concentrated period for charity and bathing. The punya kaal and the maha punya kaal are both given in the table for every sankranti.

When the crossing happens at night, the observance moves. If it falls after sunset, the punya kaal shifts to the next morning's first few hours; if it falls before sunrise, it belongs to that same morning. Because this depends on your local sunrise, the sankranti punya kaal timing genuinely differs between Delhi and Chennai even though the transit moment does not.

The one thing traditionally avoided is beginning important new work at the exact moment of transition, when the Sun is held to be between houses rather than settled in one.

The mesh sankranti date in mid-April is the beginning of the solar year, and it is one of the few days genuinely celebrated across the whole subcontinent under different names on the same date.

On the mesh sankranti date it is Baisakhi in Punjab, marking the harvest and the founding of the Khalsa. It is Vishu in Kerala, where the first thing seen on waking is arranged the night before as the vishukkani. It is Puthandu in Tamil Nadu, Bohag Bihu in Assam, Pohela Boishakh in Bengal, Maha Vishuba Sankranti in Odisha and Vaisakhi across the north.

Astronomically the mesh sankranti date marks the Sun's entry into sidereal Aries - the same point from which the zodiac is measured in Vedic astrology, which is why the mesh sankranti date also anchors the solar calendar used in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Bengal, Odisha, Assam and Punjab.

The mesh sankranti date, its exact moment and punya kaal for your city are in the table above.

In a typical year three to five of the all 12 sankranti dates have their transit after sunset or before sunrise. The rule for those is simple, and it is where most printed calendars and apps disagree. If the Sun enters the new sign after sunset, the punya kaal and the maha punya kaal move to the next morning, starting at sunrise. If it enters before sunrise, they belong to that same morning.

The last row is the one most people will notice. In 2027 the Sun enters Capricorn at 9:10 in the evening of 14 January in Delhi, so the makar sankranti date and punya kaal for bathing and charity is the morning of 15 January - which is when most of north India will celebrate. A calendar that prints only the transit date would send people to the river a day early.

The sankranti punya kaal timing on this page follows that rule for your own city. For a daytime transit it gives four hours either side of the moment, kept within daylight, and the maha punya kaal of about an hour and a half either side. For a night transit both start at the next relevant sunrise, and the table names the date so there is no doubt which morning is meant.

Regional almanacs sometimes give different spans for particular sankrantis, following older texts that assign each one its own count of ghatis. If your family follows such an almanac, use its span - but the moment of the transit and the rule about night transits are the same everywhere.

Sun transit dates are almost fixed, but not quite. The sidereal year - the time the Sun takes to return to the same star - is about 365 days and 6 hours long. So each sankranti happens roughly six hours later than the year before, until a leap day pulls it back. Over a four-year cycle the same sankranti can fall on two different dates, which is why Makar Sankranti is on 14 January in some years and 15 January in others.

There is also a slow drift. The sidereal year is about twenty minutes longer than the Gregorian year, so every sankranti moves about one day later every seventy years or so. A century ago Makar Sankranti usually fell on 13 or 14 January; in the coming decades 15 January will become more common.

The mesh sankranti date shows the same pattern: 14 April in most years now, with 13 April becoming rarer. None of this changes the meaning of the day - it only means the date should be checked each year rather than assumed, which is what the all 12 sankranti dates table above does.

The all 12 sankranti dates work as a simple solar planner for the year. Four uses cover most households.

• Wedding planning. Kharmas runs from Dhanu Sankranti in mid-December to Makar Sankranti, and again from Meena Sankranti in mid-March to the mesh sankranti date in mid-April. No weddings are fixed in those months, so the sun transit dates mark the edges of the wedding seasons.
• Charity and bathing. Each sankranti has its season's donation. Note the sankranti punya kaal timing for your city and plan the bath and the gift inside it - inside the maha punya kaal if you can.
• The solar new year. The mesh sankranti date opens the solar year in much of India, and family accounts, new ledgers and the first harvest rituals are often timed to it.
• Festivals. Pongal, Lohri, Bihu, Vishu, Onam and Raja Parba are tied to sun transit dates, not to lunar ones, so they barely move from year to year.

For each sankranti, check three things: the exact moment, whether it falls by day or by night, and the date of the punya kaal. The makar sankranti date and punya kaal is the most watched of all, and in years like 2027, when the transit falls at night, the punya kaal date is the one to follow.

1. The exact crossing. To find the sun transit dates, the Sun's sidereal longitude is tracked with the Swiss Ephemeris using the Lahiri ayanamsa, and each boundary crossing is refined to the minute.

2. Local time. The moment is converted to your time zone, and the date shown is the local date on which it occurs.

3. Punya kaal. Your own sunrise and sunset determine whether the transit falls in daylight and therefore where the punya kaal and maha punya kaal windows sit.

Two of the twelve sun transit dates divide the year in half. At Makar Sankranti in January the Sun begins its northward journey - Uttarayana - and at Karka Sankranti in July it turns south into Dakshinayana. These are the ayanas, and the tradition treats them very differently.

Uttarayana, the six months from January to July, is called the day of the gods. It is the favoured half for weddings, house entries, thread ceremonies and any auspicious beginning. Dakshinayana, from July to January, is the night of the gods, associated with inward practice, fasting and the ancestors - and it contains Chaturmas, Pitru Paksha and most of the year's major fasts.

The most quoted illustration is Bhishma in the Mahabharata, who held on through his bed of arrows until Uttarayana began before releasing his life, having been granted the choice of his own death. Whether read literally or not, it records how seriously the division was taken.

A technical note worth making: because of precession, the sidereal Makar Sankranti has drifted away from the actual winter solstice by about twenty-three days. The solstice now falls around 21 December while Makar Sankranti falls on 14 or 15 January. Both are observed; they are simply no longer the same event.

Every sankranti carries a customary donation, and the items track the season rather than the sign. This is one of the clearest places where the calendar's agricultural roots show.

Winter sankrantis - Makar and Kumbha - call for sesame, jaggery, blankets, warm clothing and khichdi. The til-gud exchanged in Maharashtra comes with the phrase asking the receiver to speak sweetly; the khichdi given in Uttar Pradesh gave Makar Sankranti its local name.

Spring and summer - Mesh through Mithuna - shift to water, buttermilk, fans, umbrellas, curd and fruit. Setting up a water stall on Mesh or Vrishabha Sankranti is a common form of the donation even now.

Monsoon and autumn - Karka through Vrishchika - move to grain, rice, cloth and lamps as the harvest comes in and the festival season opens.

The underlying idea is consistent across all twelve: give what the season makes scarce. It is a practical instruction that happens to be framed as merit.

These are the questions people ask most about the all 12 sankranti dates - why they move, what punya kaal means and how a night transit is handled.

What is the difference between punya kaal and maha punya kaal?

The punya kaal is the wider window around the transit in which bathing and charity carry special merit. The maha punya kaal is the narrower, most concentrated part of it, close to the exact moment. This page gives both for every sankranti.

Is the transit moment the same across India?

Yes. The Sun enters the sign at one instant everywhere; only the clock time is local. What differs between cities is the sankranti punya kaal timing, because it is tied to sunrise and sunset.

How is the makar sankranti date and punya kaal chosen when the transit is at night?

By the night rule: a transit after sunset moves the observance to the next morning, a transit before sunrise keeps it on the same morning. In 2027, for example, the transit is on the evening of 14 January in Delhi and the punya kaal is on the morning of the 15th.

Which of the all 12 sankranti dates matter most?

Makar and Karka, which start Uttarayana and Dakshinayana; Mesh, whose mesh sankranti date opens the solar new year; and Dhanu and Meena, which start Kharmas. The others are kept quietly with a bath and a seasonal donation.

If you are checking a date from another calendar, compare the exact moment of the transit first, then the sankranti punya kaal timing. This page prints both for your city, with the date of the punya kaal when it moves to the next morning.