When Is Sukkot? Dates and the Shape of the Week

01When is Sukkot from 2026 through 2030?

Sukkot always occupies 15–21 Tishrei. The Gregorian dates move, while the Hebrew dates do not. Each opening below is at local sundown, and each ending is after local nightfall. Read the final two columns carefully because they describe the attached observances, not extra days within Sukkot itself.

These ranges follow Hebcal’s multi-year Sukkot table and its Shemini Atzeret table. A printed date such as September 26 means the Hebrew date began the previous evening. It does not mean everyone can wait until Saturday morning to adjust a shift, travel, or prepare a meal.

Do not borrow sunset from another city. These tables deliberately stop at dates because Day 4 and a national holiday list do not calculate your local festival boundary. A synagogue schedule or location-aware Hebrew calendar supplies the correct clock time.

02The 2026 week changes shape across two communities

The first year in the table deserves a closer look. It begins on Friday evening, so Shabbat overlaps the first daytime of Sukkot. The second day then exposes the Israel/Diaspora difference.

“Intermediate” does not simply mean “ordinary weekday.” Chol HaMoed combines festival observance with more limited work rules. Some necessary work, food preparation, and work that prevents loss may be permitted, while other activity is restricted in traditionally observant communities. The details are substantial enough that Chabad’s Chol HaMoed overview directs practical questions to a competent rabbi.

Not one flat week. Several kinds of day.

If this table is going into an employee schedule, use it as a conversation starter rather than a ruling about another person’s practice. Jewish denominations, communities, households, and individuals do not all make identical work decisions. The separate guide to Jewish holidays and work turns those distinctions into a planning checklist.

03The two names at the end are not synonyms

Leviticus describes Sukkot as a seven-day observance beginning on 15 Tishrei, then names a sacred assembly on the eighth day. Jewish tradition therefore treats Shemini Atzeret on 22 Tishrei as a festival in its own right, directly adjacent to Sukkot rather than an eighth day inside the seven.

Simchat Torah names the celebration that completes and restarts the annual Torah-reading cycle. In Israel, it coincides with Shemini Atzeret on 22 Tishrei. In traditional Diaspora calendars, Shemini Atzeret is 22 Tishrei and Simchat Torah follows on 23 Tishrei. Many Reform communities combine them even outside Israel. Hebcal makes that distinction explicit on its Shemini Atzeret reference page.

So how many days is Sukkot? Seven. How long can the connected autumn block occupy? Eight Hebrew dates in Israel and in communities that combine the final observances, or nine in traditional Diaspora practice. That careful wording prevents a useful shorthand from quietly changing the identity of the festivals.

This page handles the calendar. For questions about booths, pilgrimage, Christian readings of John 7, or Zechariah 14, go to the fuller guide to the Feast of Tabernacles for Christians. Christians reach different conclusions about annual observance, and a scheduling table cannot decide those questions for them.

04Five days make the autumn feel compressed

Yom Kippur is 10 Tishrei. Sukkot begins on 15 Tishrei. Count the intervening calendar dates and you can see why the season feels fast: the fast ends after nightfall at the close of 10 Tishrei, then only 11–14 Tishrei stand before the festival opens on the next evening.

In 2026, Yom Kippur ends Monday night, September 21. Sukkot begins Friday night, September 25. Someone arranging meals, travel, a sukkah, guests, worship, or leave has roughly four civil days between those boundaries—not an uncluttered week.

The High Holidays season timeline shows the larger run from Elul through Simchat Torah. For planning, work backward from the first evening rather than forward from the bold daytime date. Mark preparation time, the full festival days you observe, any Chol HaMoed limits, and the final one- or two-day observance separately.

05A second calendar can clarify, not replace

Day 4 lays its own 364 counted days into four ninety-one-day seasons. Within that fixed structure, its seven-day Feast of Booths and the following eighth day return to the same year-days and weekdays every year. The Calendar and Feasts screens make that pattern visible, and a subscription opens future years for advance planning.

That is a different reckoning from the rabbinic Hebrew calendar used for the Sukkot dates above. Day 4 does not supply Jewish holiday dates or local sunset. Put the systems beside each other if the comparison helps, but take a synagogue event, school absence, or workplace request from a current Hebrew-calendar source.

06Common questions