Uttarayan and Dakshinayan 2026-2028: Start and End Dates

Uttarayana is the Sun’s northern course, the half of the year in which it rises a little further north each morning, and Dakshinayana is its southern course. Almanacs mark the change in two ways, and the two answers sit 23 to 26 days apart. On 28 October 2026 both agree that it is Dakshinayana. The astronomical Uttarayana begins with the December solstice on 22 December 2026; the panchang’s Uttarayana begins when the Sun enters sidereal Capricorn, Makara, at 21:05 on 14 January 2027.

Two Ways to Count the Sun’s Turn

By the solstices. At the December solstice the Sun reaches its southernmost point and starts back north, and at the June solstice it turns south again. This is the turn itself. On this count the current Dakshinayana began on 21 June 2026 and ends at the solstice of 22 December 2026.

By the sidereal signs. The traditional panchang ties the ayanas to the Sun’s entry into two sidereal signs instead: Uttarayana from Makara (Capricorn) through Mithuna (Gemini), Dakshinayana from Karka (Cancer) through Dhanu (Sagittarius). On this count the current Dakshinayana began at 23:35 on 16 July 2026 and ends with the Makara entry at 21:05 on 14 January 2027.

The two counts differ by the ayanamsa, about 24 degrees, which the Sun takes 23 to 26 days to cover, and the gap widens by about a day every 70 years. So the Sun has already been moving north for more than three weeks by the time the panchang says Uttarayana. The ayanamsa page explains the 24 degrees, and the six ritus page shows the same split in the seasons.

Start Dates, 2026 to 2028

The solstice columns give the IST date only. The ingress columns give the instant the Sun crosses into the sign, from the site’s computed ingress table.

Each Uttarayana by the solstice count begins in the December of the year before: the one in the 2027 row starts on 22 December 2026. The December 2028 solstice, on 21 December 2028, opens the Uttarayana of 2029. The Makara ingress is the astronomical moment behind Makar Sankranti, but the festival is kept by regional rules and is sometimes observed the next day; this page gives the ingress and not the festival day. The Makar Sankranti 2027 page covers the festival.

Which Half Is Longer

Counted in calendar dates, the panchang’s Uttarayana runs 183 or 184 days and its Dakshinayana 182. The solstice count gives the opposite result: Uttarayana 181 or 182 days and Dakshinayana 183 or 184. The cause is the Earth’s orbit. The Earth moves fastest in early January and slowest in early July, so a half-year’s length depends on where its two ends fall, and moving both ends by three and a half weeks is enough to swap which half is the longer.

The Shortest Day Comes Before Makara

The sunrise and sunset table for New Delhi shows the turn in hours of daylight. The day bottoms out at 10 hours 19 minutes, the value the table prints on 5 days between 17 December and 25 December 2026, around the solstice. By the Makara ingress on 14 January 2027, daylight is already 11 minutes longer than that.

Sunrise and sunset do not turn on the same day as the length of the day. The earliest sunset, 17:23, comes between 28 November and 5 December 2026, before the shortest day, and the latest sunrise, 07:15, comes between 8 January and 15 January 2027, after it. Delhi’s mornings are at their darkest in the very week the panchang’s Uttarayana begins, while its evenings will have been drawing out since 5 December. In summer the longest day, 13 hours 58 minutes, falls between 15 June and 25 June 2027, and by the Karka ingress on 17 July 2027 the day will have shortened by 12 minutes.

Kharmas, Chaturmas and the Ayanas

The site’s festival table ends the winter Kharmas on the Makara ingress day: the Dhanu Kharmas that begins on 16 December 2026 ends on 14 January 2027, the day the panchang’s Uttarayana begins. The Kharmas December 2026 page has its dates.

Chaturmas does not line up as neatly. It opens on Devshayani Ekadashi, a lunar date, and in the three years of the table that date always comes after the June solstice but not always after the Karka ingress: in 2026 it fell on 25 July 2026, after the ingress of 16 July, while in 2027 and 2028 it comes on 14 July 2027, before the ingress of 17 July, and on 2 July 2028, before the ingress of 16 July. Dev Uthani Ekadashi, which closes Chaturmas, falls in Dakshinayana by both counts each year: 20 November 2026, 10 November 2027, 28 October 2028. The Chaturmas 2027 page gives that year’s span.

The ayana also enters the choice of muhurat. The site’s muhurat rules for the upanayan, the sacred-thread rite, carry the note that the Uttarayana half of the year is strongly preferred, and that the rite’s own age rules take precedence over the panchang. In the Mahabharata, Bhishma, lying on his bed of arrows, waits for Uttarayana before leaving his body.

In Brief

• On 28 October 2026: Dakshinayana by both counts
• Next Uttarayana by the solstice: 22 December 2026
• Next Uttarayana by the panchang: 21:05 on 14 January 2027, the Sun’s entry into Makara
• Dakshinayana 2027: 21 June 2027 by the solstice, 05:42 on 17 July 2027 by the Karka ingress
• Gap between the counts: 23 to 26 days, the ayanamsa

The Sun’s other sign entries are on the Sun’s transit page, and the halves of each lunar month on the paksha dates page. In Hindi: उत्तरायण और दक्षिणायन 2026-2028: कब से कब तक.