When Is Easter 2027?

Easter Sunday 2027 falls on 28 March. Good Friday is 26 March, Easter Monday is 29 March.

This is one of the earliest Easters in recent decades — the last time Easter landed this early was 2016, when it fell on 27 March. The consequence for most of Europe and the Commonwealth: the four-day bank holiday weekend arrives while March is still firmly in charge of the weather. In northern Europe, expect temperatures between 8°C and 14°C, occasional frost in the mornings, and unpredictable skies. In southern Europe, coastal areas are already warm enough for comfortable outdoor time but the sea is cold.

Orthodox Easter 2027 falls on 2 May — five weeks after Western Easter, one of the larger gaps in the cycle. Countries observing Orthodox Easter will have their bank holidays in early May rather than late March.

There is one practical complication that makes Easter 2027 unusual: the clocks change on the same night as Easter Sunday.

EU countries and the United Kingdom move to summer time on the last Sunday of March. In 2027, that is 28 March — Easter Sunday. At 2:00 AM, clocks jump to 3:00 AM. You lose one hour of sleep on the night before Easter Monday.

For families with young children, this compounds the usual disruption of the early Easter — children's sleep schedules are thrown off at the same moment you need them rested for the bank holiday. For travellers, it means any early-morning Easter Monday flights should be booked with the time change accounted for. Check your train and ferry departure times the week before, as some operators handle the change differently to road transport.

The good news: the extra hour of evening light from Monday 29 March onward is welcome after a dark winter, and by the following weekend the difference is noticeable in northern Europe.

With Good Friday on 26 March (Friday) and Easter Monday on 29 March (Monday), the automatic break is four days.

Take Thursday 25 March as one day of annual leave and the break starts on Wednesday evening — five days off using one leave day, if your employer allows the Thursday.

For a full week: take Tuesday 30 March and Wednesday 31 March as leave. That gives you eight consecutive days off from Friday 26 March through to Sunday 4 April, using three leave days. The bank holidays and two weekends carry the rest.

For the longest possible stretch with minimal leave: some workers take the entire week of 22–25 March (four days of leave) and end up with 11 days off from Monday 22 March through Sunday 4 April. This works particularly well if your employer operates a shutdown during Easter week or if you have flexibility around quarter-end.

An early Easter in late March creates a split in the travel market that does not exist when Easter falls in mid-April.

Popular Mediterranean destinations — Portugal, southern Spain, Malta, Greece, southern Italy — are cheaper in late March than in April. Demand from non-Easter travellers is lower, and school holiday overlap is reduced compared to a mid-April Easter. For price-conscious travellers, a March Easter is one of the better years to visit Rome, Lisbon, or Barcelona without paying peak-season prices.

The trade-off is weather. Late March in the Mediterranean sits in an in-between period. Daytime temperatures in Lisbon average around 17°C in late March versus 20°C in mid-April. In Athens, 16°C versus 20°C. Not cold — but noticeably cooler than April, and with more chance of rain.

Canary Islands and Morocco are the most reliable destinations for genuine warmth at this time of year. Both are accessible from most European capitals on direct low-cost flights, and March pricing for the Canaries is typically 20–30% below peak Easter rates.

Easter is calculated as the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon on or after 21 March. In 2027, that full moon falls on 21 March itself — the earliest possible date — which means Easter Sunday falls just seven days later, on 28 March.

When the ecclesiastical full moon falls exactly on 21 March, the result is always an Easter in late March or very early April. The last time this happened was 2016 (Easter on 27 March). Before that, 2008 (23 March) and 2005 (27 March).

The other factor: 28 March is a Sunday in 2027. If the full moon had fallen one day earlier (20 March) it would have been ignored by the Nicaean formula — it must fall on or after 21 March — and Easter would have been pushed a full lunar cycle later, to late April. The difference between a March Easter and an April Easter can hinge on a single calendar day.

Orthodox Easter 2027 falls on 2 May — five weeks after Western Easter. This is one of the larger annual gaps between the two traditions.

In 2027, the Julian calendar's ecclesiastical full moon does not fall until late April, pushing Orthodox Easter into May. Countries observing Orthodox Easter — primarily Greece, Cyprus, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, and Ethiopia — will have their Easter bank holidays in early May rather than late March.

For travellers, this creates an unusual opportunity. Greece in May is warmer and more pleasant than Greece in late March, and with Orthodox Easter falling on 2 May, the week of 29 April to 3 May will see elevated domestic Greek tourism — but this has minimal impact on international visitors not aligned to those dates. Visiting Athens or the islands in the weeks between Western and Orthodox Easter (early to mid April 2027) catches the destination after the international Easter crowd has left and before the Orthodox Easter domestic surge arrives.