Sankranti Dates of Nepal: All 12 Solar Month-Openers (Maghe/Makar Sankranti)

In the Hindu solar calendar, a Sankranti (Nepali: संक्रान्ति, from Sanskrit for 'crossing over') is the exact instant the sun leaves one sidereal zodiac sign (rashi) and enters the next. Nepal's civil calendar, the Bikram Sambat (BS), is a solar calendar, and each of its twelve months begins on the day the sun makes one of these transits. That is why the first day, the pahilo gate or 'gate 1', of every Nepali month is a Sankranti. Twelve zodiac signs mean twelve solar months, and therefore exactly twelve Sankranti fall in a single Nepali year.

Each Sankranti is named after the sign the sun enters, which in turn opens the corresponding month. When the sun enters Makar (Capricorn) it opens the month of Magh, so Magh 1 is Makar Sankranti, popularly called Maghe Sankranti. When it enters Mesh (Aries) it opens Baisakh, so Baisakh 1 is Mesh Sankranti, which also happens to be Nepali New Year. The pattern repeats through all twelve signs of the zodiac.

This solar anchoring is what makes Sankranti different from Nepal's famous lunar festivals. Dashain, Tihar, Holi and Buddha Jayanti are set by the moon, so their Gregorian dates swing across a month or more from year to year. Sankranti are set by the sun, so each one lands on nearly the same English date every year and drifts by at most a day. In everyday Nepali life the answer to 'sankranti kati gate?' is therefore always the same: a Sankranti is gate 1, the first day of the new Nepali month; only its Gregorian (AD) date changes.

Below are the twelve Sankranti in Nepali-month order, each with the zodiac sign the sun enters and the Gregorian window in which it usually falls. Because the moment of transit can occur late in the day, the Nepali civil month (gate 1) sometimes begins on the day of the astronomical Sankranti and sometimes the day after, so the AD date can shift by one day between years. For a specific year, always confirm gate 1 against the official Nepal Panchanga (Bikram Sambat almanac) or the site's BS-to-AD date converter.

Maghe Sankranti, the Sankranti that opens the month of Magh, is by far the most widely observed of the twelve and the one people search for by name. It marks Makar Sankranti, the sun's entry into Capricorn, and traditionally the end of the coldest stretch of winter, the month of Poush. Devotees rise before dawn for a ritual bath in holy rivers; the confluence at Devghat (where the Trishuli and Kali Gandaki meet), Sankhamul on the Bagmati, Barahakshetra on the Koshi and the Triveni sites draw large crowds.

The exact Nepali date is fixed: Maghe Sankranti is always Magh 1 (gate 1 of Magh). Confirmed Gregorian dates for recent Bikram Sambat years are: Magh 1, 2081 fell on Tuesday, 14 January 2025; Magh 1, 2082 on Thursday, 15 January 2026; and Magh 1, 2083 on Friday, 15 January 2027. So 'Maghe Sankranti 2082' is 15 January 2026 and 'Maghe Sankranti 2083 kahile?' answers to Friday, 15 January 2027. As a rule of thumb the festival falls on 14 or 15 January every year.

The day carries a distinctive winter menu believed to give warmth and strength. Households eat ghiu (clarified butter) and chaku (hardened molasses), which give the day its nickname Ghiu-Chaku Khane Din, along with til (sesame) sweets, tarul (yam), sweet potato and khichdi. Astrologically, Makar Sankranti begins Uttarayan, the sun's northward six-month journey, regarded as an auspicious, merit-bringing period.

Searchers often find Makar Sankranti listed as 14 January in one place and 15 January in another for the same year, and both can be defensible. There are two different dates in play. The first is the astronomical Sankranti: the precise clock-time when the sun crosses into Capricorn. The second is the Nepali civil date, gate 1 of Magh, which is the day the government almanac assigns to the new month and the day Nepal actually observes the holiday.

If the transit happens early in the day, the Nepali month can start that same day; if it happens late (after the almanac's cut-off), the month begins the next morning. That is exactly why, in 2082 BS, the astronomical Makar Sankranti fell on 14 January 2026 but the observed Maghe Sankranti (Magh 1) and the public holiday were on Thursday, 15 January 2026 per the official Nepali calendar. For a Nepal audience, the date that matters is the gate-1 civil date, which is what the government holiday list uses.

Over the long run the whole festival is also drifting later in the Gregorian year. Because the sidereal calendar does not correct for the precession of the equinoxes, Makar Sankranti gains roughly one day every 70-odd years. It sat on 14 January for most of the last century and is now shifting toward 15 January and, centuries from now, will move later still. This is a slow astronomical drift, not a calendar error.

Only two of the twelve Sankranti are days off work nationwide, and only one of them is listed under the Sankranti name. Maghe Sankranti (Magh 1) is a gazetted public holiday across Nepal; the Government of Nepal's official holiday list for 2082 BS carries it as 'Maghi / Maghe Sankranti' on Magh 1. Mesh Sankranti (Baisakh 1) is also a public holiday, but the calendar records it as Nepali New Year (Navavarsha) rather than as a Sankranti, and it is the start of the Bikram Sambat year.

The remaining ten Sankranti are religious and cultural observances rather than gazetted national holidays. They are marked with ritual bathing, temple visits, offerings and, in some communities, fairs and feasts, but government offices, banks and schools stay open. Karka Sankranti (Shrawan 1), for instance, opens the holy Shrawan month of Shiva worship, and Tula Sankranti and Kanya Sankranti carry their own regional pujas, yet none is a day off by itself.

The same Magh 1 date is also New Year's Day, Maghi, for the Tharu community of the Tarai and a major festival for the Magar community, which is one reason it is treated as a full national holiday. Because a Nepali Saturday is already a weekly holiday, any Sankranti that falls on a Saturday simply coincides with the existing weekend.

You do not need an almanac for a good estimate: a Sankranti is always gate 1 of the relevant Nepali month, so pick the month (Magh for Maghe Sankranti, Mangsir for Vrischika Sankranti, and so on) and read off its first day. Converting BS gate 1 to a Gregorian date gives the calendar date, and the twelve usual windows listed above tell you the month and rough day. For an exact, confirmed date and weekday, run the specific BS year and month through a Bikram Sambat to Gregorian date converter, or check the printed Nepali patro.

The Bikram Sambat month lengths that drive these conversions are set each year by Nepal's calendar authority, the Nepal Panchanga Nirnayak Samiti (the panchang determination committee), which publishes how many days each of the twelve months holds. A BS month can be 29, 30, 31 or 32 days, and those lengths, not a fixed formula, decide precisely which Gregorian day a gate 1 lands on. Different published almanacs can occasionally differ by a day for a future year until the official panchang is finalised.

For that reason, treat the ranges in this article as reliable planning windows and confirm a single, definitive date against the current-year official calendar, especially for the ten non-holiday Sankranti whose civil gate can move a day. The two flagship dates, Maghe Sankranti and Nepali New Year, are the most consistently reported and are the ones most people need.

Mesh Sankranti, Baisakh 1, opens the Bikram Sambat year and is celebrated as Nepali New Year across the country; Baisakh 1, 2083 fell on 14 April 2026. In Bhaktapur the same day launches Bisket Jatra, the dramatic chariot-and-pole festival, tying the solar New Year to one of the valley's oldest street celebrations. Because Mesh Sankranti is fixed to the sun, Nepali New Year always lands on 13 or 14 April.

Karka Sankranti, Shrawan 1 in mid-July, is the counterpart to Makar Sankranti: it marks Dakshinayan, the sun's turn to the south, and opens Shrawan, the holiest month for devotees of Shiva, when Mondays fill the queues at Pashupatinath. Maghe Sankranti's Magh 1 doubles as Maghi, the Tharu New Year, one of the largest indigenous festivals of the Tarai, and as a landmark day for the Magar community. Several Sankranti are also traditional bathing days at river confluences, continuing a very old link between the solar calendar and pilgrimage.

Taken together, the twelve Sankranti form the skeleton of the Nepali solar year: twelve fixed hinges, one at the head of each month, around which salaries, rents, official deadlines and religious life are all counted in gate. Knowing that every Sankranti is simply gate 1 of a new month is the key to placing any of them, in any year, on the Western calendar.