How Many Ekadashi, Purnima and Amavasya in a Year?

A calendar year, January to December, holds either 24 or 25 Ekadashis, and either 12 or 13 each of Purnima (full moon) and Amavasya (new moon). In no year from 1950 to 2050 is it 26 Ekadashis, or 23. The figure people often quote, “24 Ekadashis, or 26 in a year with an adhik maas”, is also right, but it counts a different year: the Hindu lunar year that runs from one Chaitra to the next. The two counts answer two different questions, and this page gives both.

For the years at hand: 2026 has 24 Ekadashis, 13 full moons and 12 new moons. 2027 has 25, 12 and 13. 2028 has 25, 13 and 12. The yearly counts below, 1950 to 2050, were made by computing every Ekadashi, full moon and new moon of those 101 years from the Moon’s and the Sun’s positions, and an Ekadashi is filed under the date of the first sunrise it holds at New Delhi, the way the panchang names its days. The other tithis are counted from the site’s daily panchang for 2026 and 2027.

The Counts, 2026 to 2040

The full and new moon columns count astronomical instants by their IST date. A Purnima or Amavasya observance can fall on a different day from the instant, depending on the rule it follows, which is why the Purnima 2027 list separates the vrat evening from the snan-daan morning. Right at the turn of the year, such a rule can move an observance into the neighbouring year, as the Chaturthi section below shows.

Why the Number Changes: Where the First One Falls

Each lunation, new moon to new moon, contains every tithi exactly once, so it brings one Shukla Ekadashi and one Krishna Ekadashi. Lunations averaged 29.53 days over the century counted here, so twelve of them come to about 354 days, eleven short of the calendar year. Whether a thirteenth Ekadashi of the same fortnight squeezes in depends almost entirely on how early in January the year’s first Ekadashi arrives.

Across 1950–2050 the dividing line is sharp. Every year whose first Ekadashi comes on or before 10 January has 25, and every year whose first Ekadashi comes on 13 January or later has 24. A first Ekadashi on the 11th or 12th can go either way. In this century a leap year’s extra day settles it in favour of 25 every time; in other years the Moon’s varying speed decides. The latest start that still made 25 was 12 January 1972, and the earliest start that made only 24 was 11 January 2014. That is the whole story of 2026 against 2027. 2026’s first Ekadashi was on 14 January, too late for a 25th. 2027 opens with one on 3 January, and the same Ekadashi, Saphala, comes back on 23 December, as the Ekadashi 2027 list shows with every date and name.

Full moons follow the same rule with the same dividing dates. A year whose first full moon falls by 10 January has 13; the latest first full moon that still gave 13 was 12 January 1952, and the earliest that gave only 12 was 11 January 1971. A first full moon on the 11th or 12th gave 13 only in leap years: 1952, 2020 and 2028. 2028 is the next of them, its first full moon on 12 January and its 29 February together making room for a thirteenth. 2026 began with a full moon on 3 January, so it holds 13, two of them in May.

Never 26, Never 23

No calendar year from 1950 to 2050 could hold 26 Ekadashis, because the shortest stretch covering 26 consecutive ones, anywhere in the century, is 368 days, more than even a leap year. Nor could one hold fewer than 24: 24 consecutive Ekadashis never took more than 341 days, and no year’s first Ekadashi came later than 16 January, so even a year that opens just after an Ekadashi has room for 24. Of the 101 years, 27 have 24 Ekadashis and 74 have 25, about three years in four. For full moons the split is 63 years of 12 against 38 of 13; new moons give 13 in 37 years. A 13-full-moon year comes every two or three years and never two years running; 2026 is one, and 2028 is the next.

The Adhik Maas Count: 26 Ekadashis in a Hindu Year

The Hindu lunar year as the northern Vikram Samvat counts it opens on Chaitra Shukla Pratipada and runs twelve lunar months, so it carries 24 Ekadashis. When a lunation passes without the Sun changing sign, that month is an adhika (extra) month, the year has thirteen months, and the count becomes 26. Vikram Samvat 2083 is such a year. It runs from 19 March 2026 to the eve of 7 April 2027, contains Adhika Jyeshtha (17 May to 15 June 2026), and holds 26 Ekadashis. Samvat 2084, from 7 April 2027 to the eve of 27 March 2028, has no added month and holds 24. The Vikram Samvat 2083 page gives both years’ lengths in days.

The calendar-year count does not move with the adhik month. 2026 holds Adhika Jyeshtha and still has only 24 Ekadashis, because its first one came on 14 January. The site’s table of added months runs from 2020 to 2045 and holds no kshaya (dropped) month. Over that span the calendar years holding an added month have 24 or 25 Ekadashis like any other year:

• Adhika Ashwina, from 17 September 2020: that calendar year has 25 Ekadashis
• Adhika Shravana, from 18 July 2023: that calendar year has 25 Ekadashis
• Adhika Jyeshtha, from 17 May 2026: that calendar year has 24 Ekadashis
• Adhika Chaitra, from 15 March 2029: that calendar year has 25 Ekadashis
• Adhika Bhadrapada, from 18 August 2031: that calendar year has 25 Ekadashis
• Adhika Ashadha, from 16 June 2034: that calendar year has 25 Ekadashis
• Adhika Jyeshtha, from 15 May 2037: that calendar year has 24 Ekadashis
• Adhika Ashwina, from 18 September 2039: that calendar year has 25 Ekadashis
• Adhika Shravana, from 17 July 2042: that calendar year has 25 Ekadashis
• Adhika Jyeshtha, from 16 May 2045: that calendar year has 24 Ekadashis

So when a calendar or a priest says “26 this year”, it is counting a lunar year, usually Chaitra to Chaitra, and the two extra Ekadashis are the pair inside the adhik month. How the month is named is explained on the adhik maas page.

How Many in a Month

Most months have two Ekadashis: 1,120 of the 1,212 months counted. A month of 30 or 31 days can fit a third when one falls on its first day or two, which is the case in 83 months, roughly one in fifteen. The next is June 2027, with Ekadashis on 1 June, 14 June and 30 June; after it come August 2028, December 2029 and July 2031. Only February, at 28 or 29 days, can drop to one. It does so nine times in the century, most recently in 2019 and next in 2038, then 2042.

Full moons and new moons come once a month in all but a few cases. Over the century 42 months hold two full moons, among them May 2026; the next is December 2028; the supermoon page covers those “blue moon” months and how near each full moon comes. February is the only month that can miss one altogether. It goes without a full moon in 1953, 1999, 2018 and 2037, and without a new moon in 1957, 1976, 1995, 2014 and 2033.

Chaturthi, Ashtami, Pradosh and Shivratri

Each of the other monthly vrats is tied to a tithi, and each tithi comes once in every fortnight of its kind, so the same 12-or-13 arithmetic applies to each fortnight separately. A vrat kept in both fortnights, like Ekadashi or Pradosh, therefore comes about two dozen times a year, and one kept in a single fortnight, like Sankashti or Masik Shivratri, about a dozen. The table counts how many times each tithi holds a sunrise at New Delhi in 2026 and 2027, with a kshaya tithi, one that holds no sunrise, counted where it is skipped. In both years every figure is 12 or 13.

A vrat list can still come out one longer or shorter than its tithi count, because each observance has its own rule for which day it takes, and at the very end of December that rule can push a tithi into the other year. The Vinayaka Chaturthi 2027 list has 13 dates while 2027 has only 12 Shukla Chaturthi sunrises. Its rule looks at the midday window, and the Chaturthi whose first sunrise is on 1 January 2028 begins on 31 December 2027 in time to hold that day’s midday, so the list files it there. For the other lists the counts agree: 25 on the Ekadashi list, 25 on the Pradosh vrat 2027 list, 12 on the Purnima list and 13 on the Amavasya 2027 list.

How the Counts Were Made

Each new moon, full moon and Ekadashi boundary from 1950 to 2050 was found by computing the Moon’s lead over the Sun, the same quantity that defines every tithi, and the method was checked against all 75 new and full moons the site’s ephemeris tables carry for 2026–28, which it matches to within 2 minutes. An Ekadashi goes to the year of the first New Delhi sunrise it holds. 107 of the 2,498 Ekadashis in the century hold no sunrise at all; those go to the date they begin. For 2026 and 2027 the yearly counts were matched against the site’s daily panchang, and the 2027 Ekadashis against the Ekadashi 2027 list, date for date. The kshaya and vriddhi tithi list shows how a tithi can miss a sunrise or hold two.

Counting in Indian time matters at New Year. The full moons of 1 January 1972, 1991 and 2010, IST, were still on 31 December in Greenwich time, so a list made on UTC gives 1971, 1990 and 2009 a thirteenth full moon that Indian time gives to the following year instead. The 1991 one came less than ten minutes after midnight IST, so an almanac computed a little differently could put it on 31 December; in that reckoning 1990 would have 13 full moons and 1991 twelve, the reverse of the counts here.

In Brief

• Ekadashis in a calendar year: 24 or 25 (2026: 24, 2027: 25, 2028: 25); 25 when the first falls by 10 January
• Ekadashis in a Hindu year: 24, or 26 when it holds an adhik month (Samvat 2083: 26)
• Full moons and new moons: 12 or 13 each; 2026 and 2028 have 13 full moons, 2027 has 13 new moons
• In a month: usually two Ekadashis, three in about one month in fifteen (June 2027 next), one only in some Februaries
• Trayodashi, Chaturthi and Ashtami tithis: 24 or 25 sunrises in 2026 and in 2027, counting both fortnights; a single fortnight’s tithi, as for Sankashti, Kalashtami or Masik Shivratri, 12 or 13