When Is Black Friday?

The Short Answer

Black Friday is always the Friday right after Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving is fixed by law as the fourth Thursday of November, so Black Friday is fixed too, even though the calendar date shifts a little every year. There is no committee that picks the date and no way for it to move to a different weekday: it is Friday, every single year, without exception.

That single rule is the whole answer. Everything else on this page, the countdown, the year-by-year table, and the history, exists to back that answer up with real dates and sources rather than asking you to just take our word for it.

How the Date Is Decided

Two US federal holidays sit at the center of this. Thanksgiving was set by Congress in 1941 as the fourth Thursday of November. Once that date is fixed, Black Friday follows automatically as the very next day, so working out the date for any year only takes two steps.

1. Find the fourth Thursday of November for the year you care about.
2. Add one day. That Friday is Black Friday.

Is Black Friday the Same Date Every Year?

No, and that trips a lot of people up. Because it is tied to a weekday rather than a fixed calendar date, Black Friday can land anywhere from November 23 to November 29 depending on how the days of the week fall that year. In 2023 it was November 24. In 2024 it moved to November 29, a full five days later. Both are correct: both are the fourth Friday of November, they just happen to fall on different calendar dates because November has either four or five Thursdays before the 27th depending on the year.

Want the full picture instead of just the next date? See the complete Black Friday date table, which lists every year from 2016 through 2032 side by side with Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.

Why Is It Called Black Friday?

The name is older than most people assume, and the documented history is a bit messier than the popular story. The earliest known print use is from 1951, in a trade journal describing factory workers calling in sick the day after Thanksgiving. Around the same period, Philadelphia and Rochester police started using the phrase for the heavy holiday-shopping traffic they had to manage. The friendlier explanation many people repeat today, that it marks the day stores' books turn from a loss (red ink) to a profit (black ink), only shows up in print about three decades later, once retailers wanted a more flattering story for a name they'd stopped trying to fight.

Philadelphia merchants even tried rebranding the day "Big Friday" in 1961 to escape the negative connotation. It didn't stick. For the full year-by-year history, including exact dates and sources, read why it's called Black Friday.

What Time Does Black Friday Start and End?

There is no official opening bell. Black Friday itself runs like any other calendar day, from midnight to midnight, but individual store hours vary a lot from retailer to retailer and from year to year. Many large retailers now open some deals online at midnight or even on Thanksgiving evening, while in-store doorbusters at big-box chains have historically opened anywhere from midnight to 6 a.m. Smaller, local stores are more likely to keep close to their normal opening time. Because the promotional window has stretched out, plenty of shoppers now treat the entire weekend, sometimes even the following Monday (Cyber Monday), as part of "Black Friday" in a loose sense, even though the calendar day itself is just the one Friday.

How This Page Stays Accurate Every Year

The date and countdown above are not typed in by hand and left to go stale. They're calculated live, in your own browser, using the same fixed calendar rule described above: find the fourth Thursday of November, then add one day. Because that rule never changes, this page automatically shows the correct year, the correct date, and a correctly running countdown no matter when you visit it, next month, next year, or five years from now, without anyone needing to come back and update a hardcoded date.

Is Black Friday a Public Holiday?

Not at the federal level. The day after Thanksgiving is not one of the eleven official US federal holidays, so most businesses, banks, and the postal service are open. That said, it is treated as a de facto day off in a lot of workplaces: many private employers close or give staff the day off since Thanksgiving already falls on a Thursday, and several US states officially recognize "Day After Thanksgiving" as a state holiday for government employees and public schools, which closes some state offices and courts for the day.

• Federal government offices, most banks, and mail delivery: open as normal
• Public schools: closed in the states that recognize it as a state holiday
• Retail: open, and busier than almost any other day of the year
• Private employers: many close voluntarily, especially those already closed for Thanksgiving

Black Friday Around the World

Black Friday started as a purely American tradition, tied to the American Thanksgiving holiday, but the sale date has since spread well beyond the United States. Retailers in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Germany, France and a growing list of other countries now run Black Friday promotions on the same November date, largely because large multinational and online retailers apply one global promotional calendar rather than a different sale date per country.

That spread creates an odd situation in a country like Canada, which has its own, completely separate Thanksgiving holiday in October. Canadian retailers still run "Black Friday" sales in late November, following the American date rather than their own Thanksgiving, simply because that's the date shoppers and competing retailers already expect. In most non-US markets, the day itself carries no separate national significance the way it does in the United States, where it's tied directly to the day after a specific federal holiday. It's purely a shopping calendar date imported from the US retail world.

How Long Has Black Friday Been Around?

Longer than most people assume, and the earliest known use of the phrase has nothing to do with shopping at all. It first shows up in print in 1951, in a trade journal describing factory workers calling in sick the day after Thanksgiving to stretch the holiday into a four-day weekend. Philadelphia and Rochester police started using the same phrase around the same period for the heavy holiday-shopping traffic they had to manage every year.

The version most people know today, that the name marks the day stores' books turn from a loss (red ink) to a profit (black ink), only appears in print roughly three decades later, in the early 1980s, once retailers wanted a friendlier story to go with a name they'd stopped trying to fight. For the full year-by-year history, with exact dates and sources for each claim, see why it's called Black Friday.

Black Friday, Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday at a Glance

These three dates always sit in the same order relative to each other, only the exact calendar dates change from year to year.

• Thursday: Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday of November.
• Friday: Black Friday, the day right after Thanksgiving.
• The following Monday: Cyber Monday, three days after Black Friday, focused on online deals.

Black Friday Dates: This Year and Next

Here is a condensed view covering the two years just behind us and the three years ahead, so you can see the pattern without scrolling through a much longer table. Notice how the date usually drifts by just a few days from one year to the next, then occasionally jumps by close to a full week once November 1 cycles back to a similar weekday. For the complete table going back to 2016 and forward to 2032, plus Cyber Monday for every year, visit the full date list.