Chhath Puja 2026: Dates, the Four Days, and Where to Watch

Quick Answer

Chhath Puja — also called Chhath, Surya Shashthi or Dala Chhath — runs from Thursday, November 12 to Sunday, November 15, 2026. It is a four-day Vedic sun festival, the most important festival of Nepal's Madheshi and Terai communities, and it is observed at the water's edge rather than in a temple.

Two of the four days carry almost all of the visitor-facing activity: Sandhya Arghya on the evening of Saturday, November 14, when devotees stand waist-deep in water and raise their offering trays to the setting sun, and Usha Arghya before dawn on Sunday, November 15, when the same offering is made to the rising sun and a 36-hour waterless fast is broken.

Chhath begins the day after Tihar closes — Tihar 2026 runs November 7–11 — so the two festivals can be seen on a single trip. Use the November 2026 calendar for date browsing and the canonical Chhath Puja page for the full festival entity, all four days, and photographs.

2026 Dates

Festival	Start	End	Nepali calendar
Chhath Puja 2026	Thursday, November 12, 2026	Sunday, November 15, 2026	Kartik 26 - Kartik 29, 2083 BS

Nepal festival dates follow the lunar Bikram Sambat calendar, so the Gregorian dates move every year: Chhath began on November 4 in 2024 and October 24 in 2025. Do not reuse the 2026 dates for a later trip — check the current Nepal festival calendar.

The 2027 dates are not yet fixed. Lunar dates become final only when the official 2084 BS patro is published, so there is no reliable Chhath 2027 date to plan against at the time of writing.

The Four Days

Chhath is four days long, and the ritual weight is not spread evenly across them. The first two days are private and domestic; the third and fourth are the public ones, and both happen at a riverbank or pond ghat.

Day	Name	2026 date	Nepali date	What happens
1	Nahay Khay	Thursday, November 12	Kartik 26	"Bathe and eat." The vrati — the person keeping the fast, almost always a woman — bathes in a river or pond and eats a prescribed sattvic meal of rice, chana dal and bottle gourd. The kitchen is purified and vessels are set aside for Chhath alone.
2	Kharna	Friday, November 13	Kartik 27	A fast from sunrise to sunset, broken at dusk with kheer and chapati offered first to Chhathi Maiya. That meal is the last food and water for 36 hours: the nirjala fast begins when it ends.
3	Sandhya Arghya	Saturday, November 14	Kartik 28	The festival's climax. Families walk to the decorated ghat; the vrati stands in the water and raises the soop — a flat bamboo tray of bananas, coconut, sugarcane, sweet potato, flowers and lit lamps — as the sun touches the horizon. Oil lamps are then floated on the water.
4	Usha Arghya	Sunday, November 15	Kartik 29	The same offering, before dawn, facing east. When the sun's first edge appears the arghya is made, and the vrati drinks water for the first time in 36 hours. The festival ends at the water's edge.

Two things sit alongside the four days rather than inside them. The ghat preparation starts days earlier, when neighbourhood volunteers level a riverbank, build bamboo steps, tie banana leaves to poles and draw rangoli at the waterline — the ghat is made, not found, and the making is part of the offering. And the theology of sun worship explains the festival's most distinctive feature: there is no priest, no idol and no temple. The vrati performs every rite herself, directly to a sun everyone can see.

Where to Watch

Chhath is a Terai festival that has also become a Kathmandu one, carried into the Valley by the Terai diaspora.

• Janakpur is the most rewarding place to see it. The city's sacred ponds are purpose-built ritual water, and Janaki Mandir anchors the surrounding pilgrimage. This is Chhath in its home region rather than in diaspora.
• Kathmandu's Bagmati and Bishnumati ghats are the accessible option if you are already in the Valley. The stretch below Pashupatinath draws large crowds, and Madheshi communities have made these ghats their own — the choice of the Valley's oldest rivers is itself a statement of cultural presence.
• Anywhere in the Terai with water. Rivers, ponds and wetlands across the southern plains all host ghats. There is no single central event; the festival happens simultaneously in thousands of places.

Practical Notes

Time your visit around the third evening. If you can only be present once, be present for Sandhya Arghya on November 14. Arrive at the ghat at least an hour before sunset — the offering is made at the moment the sun reaches the horizon, and the crowd, the lamps and the ghat decoration are all in place well before that. The dawn offering on November 15 is quieter, colder and in some ways more affecting, but it requires being at the water in darkness.

Book Janakpur early, and expect Tihar traffic first. Chhath begins the day after Tihar's five days end, which means the November 7–15 window is a single continuous travel peak. See the Tihar 2026 guide for that half of it. Buses and flights to the Terai fill in advance, and both festivals move people toward their home districts at once.

Dress for cold water and a cold night. This is Kartik — the plains are mild by day and genuinely cold before dawn. The devotees standing in the water are doing so as part of the devotion; you should not be in the water at all.

Etiquette

Chhath is a fast, not a performance, and the vrati has gone without food and water for well over a day by the time the cameras arrive.

• Do not wade into the water. The ghat water is ritually prepared. Watch from the bank or the steps.
• Do not touch the offerings. The soop and its contents are consecrated, and a stranger's hand on the tray means it has to be dealt with.
• Ask before photographing a face. Wide shots of the ghat are uncontroversial; a close portrait of a woman mid-prayer is not. The festival is intensely photographed and most families are relaxed about it, but the asking is the point.
• Accept prasad if it is offered. Thekua — a crisp fried wheat-flour cake, the festival's signature food — is shared freely, and taking some is the correct response.
• Do not litter the ghat. The community cleaned and built it by hand over several days.