When Is Thanksgiving in the USA? 2026 Date, Traditions and Tips

Every year, on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, I get the same text from a close friend in Ohio: "Turkey's in the fridge. Countdown has started."

She hosts dinner for 12 people, so for her, Thanksgiving doesn't start on Thursday. It starts the day a frozen 16-pound turkey moves from the freezer to the fridge. Maybe you just need the date. Maybe you're booking a flight home, or hosting for the first time. Either way, this guide has you covered, with a few lessons from her kitchen along the way.

Thanksgiving Dates for the Next 5 Years

Planning ahead? Here are the next five Thanksgivings. Black Friday, the big shopping day, is always the day after.

Thanksgiving can't fall earlier than November 22 or later than November 28. The next time it lands on the earliest date is 2029. The latest date, November 28, comes up in 2030.

And because it's always a Thursday, Thanksgiving never gets moved to a Friday or a Monday the way the Fourth of July sometimes does. Our guide to US federal holidays explains how that weekend rule works.

Why Is Thanksgiving on the Fourth Thursday?

For a long time there was no national date at all. Each state picked its own day. Here's how the fourth Thursday came about:

A fun extra for the dinner table: Sarah Josepha Hale is also the writer most often credited with the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

The Year America Had Two Thanksgivings

The 1939 story is a good one. That November had five Thursdays, so the "last Thursday" fell on November 30. Store owners worried that such a late Thanksgiving would leave too few shopping days before Christmas. So President Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week, to November 23.

The country split. According to the National Archives, 32 states followed the president and 16 refused, sticking with the last Thursday. For a while, families in neighboring states sat down to turkey a week apart, and critics nicknamed the new date "Franksgiving." At the end of 1941, a new law settled it for good: the fourth Thursday in November, every year.

The holiday also means different things to different people. Since 1970, some Native Americans have gathered in Plymouth on Thanksgiving Day for a National Day of Mourning, to remember what the years after 1621 meant for their nations. The day after Thanksgiving is Native American Heritage Day.

Thanksgiving Week 2026 at a Glance

Thanksgiving is really a whole week. Here's how the days line up in 2026:

If your dates are flexible, flying on Thanksgiving morning, or coming home on Monday or Tuesday, usually means shorter lines. The Sunday after is the one to avoid. On that Sunday in 2025, the TSA screened about 3.13 million people, a record at the time.

What's Open and Closed on Thanksgiving Day

A lot of the country shuts down for the day. Here's what to expect:

In Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, state laws keep most large stores closed on Thanksgiving.

A tip my friend learned the hard way: one year she ran out of cream for the mashed potatoes, and her usual supermarket closed at noon. Now she checks holiday hours on Wednesday and buys a little extra of everything.

How Americans Celebrate Thanksgiving

A Typical Thanksgiving Day

Every family has its own routine, but my friend's day looks a lot like what happens in homes across the country:

• 8:30 a.m.: The parade comes on TV while the coffee brews.
• Late morning: The turkey goes into the oven, and someone is always peeling potatoes.
• Lunchtime: The first football game starts. The TV gets louder, and so does the kitchen.
• Around 3 p.m.: Dinner. Before anyone picks up a fork, each person shares one thing they're thankful for.
• Evening: Pie, the night game, and friendly arguments over who takes home the leftovers.

That thankful round is the part people remember. It doesn't have to be deep. Last year her 7-year-old nephew said he was thankful for "the dog and mashed potatoes," and nobody could top it.

The Parade and the Football

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City began in 1924. It was canceled from 1942 to 1944 during World War II, which makes the 2026 parade the 100th. The broadcast starts at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on NBC and Peacock.

Then comes football. The Detroit Lions have hosted a Thanksgiving game since 1934, and the Dallas Cowboys since 1966, apart from two years in the 1970s. A third game at night was added in 2006, so a true fan can watch from lunch until bedtime.

What's on the Table

Menus change from house to house, but these are the classics:

• Roast turkey with gravy
• Stuffing, which many families in the South call "dressing"
• Mashed potatoes, plus sweet potato casserole, often topped with marshmallows
• Cranberry sauce, homemade or the canned kind that slides out in the shape of the can
• Green bean casserole, a recipe created in 1955 by Dorcas Reilly in a Campbell's test kitchen
• Pumpkin pie and pecan pie for dessert

Here's a fun one: the only foods named in the eyewitness account of the 1621 feast are wild birds and five deer brought by the Wampanoag. No pie, and no cranberry sauce.

My friend says the best meal of the whole weekend is on Friday: a leftover sandwich with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce, all between two slices of bread.

Turkey Trots, Friendsgiving and the Turkey Pardon

• Turkey trots: Lots of towns hold a fun run on Thanksgiving morning, so people can earn their dinner. The YMCA Turkey Trot in Buffalo, New York, has run every year since 1896 and calls itself the oldest continuously run public footrace in North America.
• Friendsgiving: A Thanksgiving-style meal with friends, often a potluck on the weekend before or after the holiday. It's popular with students and anyone who can't travel home.
• The turkey pardon: Every November, the president "pardons" a turkey, which is spared from the dinner table. President George H.W. Bush made it an official tradition in 1989.

Hosting Thanksgiving? A Simple Countdown

Hosting for the first time can feel like a lot. This is roughly the plan my friend follows. The turkey times come from US food safety advice from the CDC and USDA.

If you like planning on paper, print a free weekly planner for Thanksgiving week and write each job on the day you'll do it. For the bigger picture, our November 2026 calendar has Thanksgiving already marked.

Is Thanksgiving the Same Day in Canada?

No. Canada celebrates Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October, and it's a separate holiday with its own history. In 2026, Canadian Thanksgiving falls on Monday, October 12.

Here's a fun fact: the two holidays are always exactly 45 days apart, every single year. If you have family on both sides of the border, mark both dates on a printable monthly calendar and enjoy two turkey dinners. Our guide to Thanksgiving in Canada covers the Canadian date, stat holiday rules and traditions.