New Year's Eve 2024: When is New Year's Eve 2024 & 2025?

Below you can find dates of New Year's Eve 2024 and New Year's Eve 2025. In the table you can check how many days you have been on holiday, which week is the holiday and which day of the month.

When is ..? Date Day of the week Week Number Day left
New Year's Eve 2024 December 31, 2024 Tuesday 01 19
New Year's Eve 2025 December 31, 2025 Wednesday 01 384
New Year's Eve 2026 December 31, 2026 Thursday 53 749
New Year's Eve 2027 December 31, 2027 Friday 52 1114
New Year's Eve 2028 December 31, 2028 Sunday 52 1480
New Year's Eve 2029 December 31, 2029 Monday 01 1845
New Year's Eve 2030 December 31, 2030 Tuesday 01 2210
New Year's Eve 2031 December 31, 2031 Wednesday 01 2575
New Year's Eve 2032 December 31, 2032 Friday 53 2941
New Year's Eve 2033 December 31, 2033 Saturday 52 3306
New Year's Eve 2034 December 31, 2034 Sunday 52 3671

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve is the last day of the year which is on December 31 according to Gregorian calendar. In many countries, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at evening social gatherings, when people dance, eat, drink, and watch or light fireworks to mark the new year. The celebrations generally go on past midnight into January 1 or as known as New Year's Day.

New Year's Eve Background

  • The earliest recording of a new year celebration is believed to have been in Mesopotamia, c. 2000 B.C. and was celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox, in mid-March.
  • A variety of other dates tied to the seasons were also used by various ancient cultures. The Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians began their new year with the fall equinox, and the Greeks celebrated it on the winter solstice.
  • The early Roman calendar designated March 1 as the new year. The calendar had just ten months, beginning with March.
  • In 1582, the Gregorian calendar reform restored January 1 as New Year’s Day.
  • In present day, with most countries now using the Gregorian calendar as their de facto calendar, New Year’s Day is probably the most celebrated public holiday, often observed with fireworks at the stroke of midnight as the new year starts in each time zone.

New Year's Eve Celebrations

  • New Year's Eve is typically chock full of shows, and they often start just late enough for a band to hit their encore right as the countdown begins.
  • You may go to the theater and see a play or a stand-up show. Both types of stages routinely hold New Year's Eve shows, and both make you feel like you've ended the year on a high note.
  • On New Year's Eve, the movie theater is a super laid-back spot. And since award-winning films tend to come out near the end of the year, this is a primo opportunity to watch the next Best Picture.
  • One of the most obvious fun things to do on New Year's Eve is to go out for the year's last dinner. And since you won't get another chance to eat something delish in 2018, make sure you make to choose one of the better restaurants in your city.
  • Great for larger groups, escape rooms let you imagine you're spending the last night of 2018 stealing top-secret documents or saving the world.
  • Bowling seems like an old standby, but it's sneakily one of the best New Year's Eve activities: it's leisurely, but with just enough necessary movement to keep the blood flowing and keep you awake until midnight.
  • It's winter, and that means your local ice rink should be open. Spend the evening smoothly and serenely skating along the ice. It's an awfully romantic spot for a New Year's kiss with your date.
  • Some indoor golfing simulators stay open late on New Year's Eve, meaning you can spend the final hours of 2018 dreaming of how glorious your swing will be in 2019 . . . once it gets a little warmer.
  • Attend the most famous New Year's party in NYC. Times Square will be crowded. But if you can snag some sidewalk space, you'll witness one of America's great annual spectacles when the clock strikes midnight.
  • Las Vegas is the ideal destination for those who want to stay up way past midnight. There's no shortage of things to do on NYE in Sin City, from gaming at casinos to live shows to ritzy bars to all-night buffets. Good luck going to bed before dawn.
  • New Orleans doesn't just do Mardi Gras. It's generally a world-class party town, with plenty of bars and late-night jazz clubs to make for one crazy New Year's.
  • A little different than the typical dance club, a jazz club will stay open just as late and let you ring in the New Year with a live band.

New Year's Eve Customs and Traditions

Although many cultures celebrate the event in some manner. Common traditions include attending parties, eating special New Year’s foods, making resolutions for the new year and watching fireworks displays.

A New Year’s resolution is a tradition, most common in the Western Hemisphere but also found in the Eastern Hemisphere, in which a person resolves to change an undesired trait or behavior.

January is named after Janus, the god with two faces, one looking forward and one looking backward. He is the god of beginnings, transitions, gates, doors, passages, and endings. Ancient Persians gave New Year’s gifts of eggs, which symbolized productiveness. The first recorded New Year’s celebration dates back 4,000 years to Babylon, when the first moon after the spring equinox marked a new year. In 46 B.C., Julius Caesar created a calendar with Jan. 1 as the first day of the year, partly to honor Janus, the month’s namesake. 

New Year's Eve Facts

  • Samoa and parts of Kiribati are the first places to welcome the New Year while American Samoa and Baker Island in the United States, are among the last.
  • Every year Berlin hosts one of the largest New Year’s Eve celebrations in all of Europe, attended by over a million people. The focal point is the Brandenburg Gate, where midnight fireworks are centered. Germans toast the New Year with a glass of Sekt (German sparkling wine) or Champagne.
  • The celebration in London focuses on Big Ben (Westminster Clock Tower) the bell and by association the clock housed in the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster. These celebrations are aired by the BBC and other networks.
  • The largest celebration in Australia is held in its largest city: Sydney. The “Midnight Fireworks” are regularly watched by approximately 1.5–2 million people at Sydney Harbour. As one of the first major New Year’s celebrations globally each year, Sydney’s Midnight Fireworks are often broadcast throughout the world during the day of 31 December.
  • In Dubai, United Arab Emirates, New Year’s fireworks are set off from Jumeirah Beach (including Burj Al Arab) and the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa. The New Year fireworks display at Burj Khalifa is among the world’s most expensive.
  • At midnight on December 31, Buddhist temples all over Japan ring their bells a total of 108 times to symbolize the 108 human sins in Buddhist belief, and to get rid of the 108 worldly desires regarding sense and feeling in every Japanese citizen. A major attraction is The Watched Night bell, in Tokyo.
  • Mexicans celebrate New Year’s Eve, by eating a grape with each of the twelve chimes of a clock’s bell during the midnight countdown, while making a wish with each one.
  • In some cities of Colombia, Cuba and Puerto Rico, there is a tradition of making a male doll that is stuffed with memories from the past year, all dressed with the clothes of the outgoing year and is called Mr. Old Year. At midnight, the doll is set on fire symbolizing erasing of the bad memories.
  • There is a music festival every New Year’s Eve in the Antarctic called ‘Icestock’
  • Russians celebrate the New Year twice, once on January 1st and then again on January 14th.
  • In Italy, people wear red underwear on New Year’s Day to bring good luck all year long.
  • Until 2006, the Space Shuttle never flew on New Year’s Day or New Year’s Eve because its computers couldn’t handle a year rollover.
  • Time Square New Year’s Eve Ball was first dropped in 1907 after there was a fireworks ban. The original ball weighed 700 pounds and featured 100 25-watt bulbs. 

New Year's Eve Symbols

  • “Auld Lang Syne” is traditionally sung at midnight on New Year’s Eve. It was written by Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1788. He may have based it on a folk song. The words auld lang syne mean “times gone by”.
  • Popping champagne corks at the stroke of midnight is a mainstay on New Year’s Eve, whether at swanky parties or home celebrations.
  • Each New Year’s Eve 1 million people gather in New York City’s Times Square to watch famous ball drop. Another 1 billion people from around the world will watch the famed ball drop on TV.
  • Black eyed peas, ham, and cabbage are considered good luck if you eat them on New Year’s Eve or Day because it is believed they will bring you money.
  • Lobster and chicken are considered bad luck because lobsters can move backward and chickens can scratch in reverse, so it is thought these foods could bring a reversal of fortune.
  • The tradition to kiss at midnight isn’t a recent invention. According to old English and German folklore, the first person you come across in the new year could set the tone for the next 12 months.
  • To ensure a year of good luck, firecrackers and noisemakers became tradition in order to scare away any remaining evil spirits and to ensure a brand-new start.
  • 2,000 pounds (907kg) of confetti are dropped on the crowd in Times Square at midnight.

Check out the New Year's Eve in the following years.