Birthday Countdown

Enter your Date of birth and press Start countdown. A timer appears with four numbers, Days, Hours, Minutes and Seconds, and it ticks down every second for as long as the page is open.

Only the day and month of your birth date drive the countdown. The year is used for one thing: showing the age you are about to turn. Enter a friend's or child's birth date in the same way to count down to their birthday.

The countdown runs to midnight at the start of your next birthday, in the time zone of the device you are using. If your birthday is December 25, the timer reaches zero at the very start of December 25 in your local time, the moment the day begins where you are. Someone following the same countdown in another time zone sees it reach zero at their own midnight.

The calculation happens entirely in your browser, using your device's clock. Close the tab and come back later, enter the date again, and the countdown picks up from the current moment.

Above the timer, the sentence "Your next birthday is on" gives the full date of your next birthday, weekday included. The table below it adds four rows.

For someone born on December 25, 1998, checking on the afternoon of October 8, 2026:

Days until your birthday counts calendar days from today's date to the birthday. The Days figure in the live timer counts only full 24-hour days left from the current moment, so at three in the afternoon it shows 77 days and 9 hours. Both are correct; they answer slightly different questions.

On the birthday itself, the sentence changes to a birthday message, a row called Age today shows the age you have just reached, and the timer starts counting down to the following year's birthday. The table can be copied, or exported as CSV or an image.

February 29 appears only in leap years. Under the Gregorian calendar, a year is a leap year if it is divisible by 4, except century years, which must also be divisible by 400. 2000 was a leap year, 2100 will not be, and most people born on February 29 see their actual birth date about once every four years.

In the other years the birthday has to land somewhere. When you enter a February 29 birth date, the tool shows an extra choice, In years without 29 February, count down to, with two options:

• March 1, the default. This is the day the age actually changes: in a common year, a full year since a February 29 birth is completed only when February is over. It matches how most date tools and the age calculator count age, and it is the legal birthday in common years in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong.
• February 28, the day many people born on February 29 prefer to celebrate, so the party stays in their birth month. It is also the legal date in Taiwan.

For someone born on February 29, 2000, the next birthday after October 8, 2026 falls on March 1, 2027, a Monday, with the default, or on February 28, 2027, a Sunday, with the alternative. A note under the result always says which day the countdown is using.

Rules differ between countries and between legal contexts such as licences, pensions and age limits. The choice in the tool only changes the countdown, so check local rules when a legal date matters.

The Day of the week row is the quickest way to plan a party. A birthday on a Friday or Saturday makes an evening celebration easy, while a midweek birthday often means moving the party to the weekend before or after.

A birthday moves one weekday later each year, because a common year has 365 days, which is 52 weeks and 1 day. When a February 29 falls between two birthdays, the jump is two days instead. December 25 shows the pattern:

Between 2027 and 2028 the birthday skips Sunday, because the leap day of 2028 falls in between. For birthdays in January or February, the skip happens a year later, when the leap day lands between their dates.

The countdown shows only the next birthday. To see how many days separate today from a birthday further ahead, or from any other date, use a days-between-dates calculator.

A birthday countdown answers one question: how long until the next birthday. Nearby questions are better handled by other tools.

• For your exact age today in years, months and days, use the age calculator.
• To go from an age to a birth year, or from a birth year to an age, try a birth year calculator.
• To compare two birthdays and see who is older and by how much, use an age difference calculator.

All of these use the same calendar rules, so a February 29 birthday is handled consistently across them.

The countdown runs entirely in your browser. Your birth date is not uploaded, stored or shared, and there is no account to create. Reloading the page clears it.

It is free with no limit, so you can check as many birthdays as you like, one after another. Export the result as CSV or an image if you want to keep it or send it to someone.