Chhath Puja 2027: 2 to 5 November, With Arghya Times by City

Chhath Puja 2027: 2 to 5 November, With Arghya Times by City

Chhath Puja 2027 runs from Tuesday 2 November to Friday 5 November: Nahay Khay on the 2nd, Kharna on the 3rd, Sandhya Arghya at sunset on Thursday 4 November (5:07 PM in Patna) and Usha Arghya at sunrise on Friday 5 November (6:00 AM in Patna). Families split between Bihar and a city job often share the arghya over a phone, and that is where greetings land too: 48.3% of the 57,456 recorded views of shared SubhSandesh pages came from a phone. Our closest festival data comes from Raksha Bandhan 2026, a different festival with a small sample of 89 pages, and 49.4% of those were built on the day itself.

Below are the four days, sunset and sunrise for eight cities, how long the waterless fast actually runs, and what the 2027 holiday orders say.

What Chhath Puja is, and why 2027 falls on 2 to 5 November

Chhath Puja is a four-day vow to Surya, the sun, and to Chhathi Maiya, kept around Kartika Shukla Shashthi, the sixth lunar day after Diwali's new moon. It is the defining festival of Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh and Nepal's Terai, and the vrati, usually the woman of the house, makes the offerings without a priest.

In 2027 Shashthi runs from 7:31 PM on Wednesday 3 November to 9:37 PM on Thursday 4 November in Patna, so Thursday's sunset gets the evening arghya and Friday's sunrise, in Saptami, closes the vow. With Lakshmi Puja on Friday 29 October, the last arghya comes exactly one week after Diwali night.

The four days of Chhath 2027, from Nahay Khay to Usha Arghya

The clearest open account of the rites we found is Githa Badikilaya's commentary in Christ University's Atna Journal of Tourism Studies (Vol. 14, No. 2). The days below follow her order, with Patna's 2027 sun times.

Day 1: Nahay Khay, Tuesday 2 November

Nahay Khay means "bathe and eat". The vrati bathes, ideally in a river, carries that water home for cooking and eats one sattvik meal; Badikilaya records a raw-rice porridge. Puja food has no onion or garlic, and Patna's sun sets at 5:08 PM.

Day 2: Kharna, Wednesday 3 November

Kharna, also called Lohanda, is a full day of fasting that ends only after sunset, 5:07 PM in Patna. The vrati then offers and eats kheer, puris and bananas, which are also shared with neighbours. From that meal, Badikilaya writes, the fast continues for the next 36 hours.

Day 3: Sandhya Arghya, Thursday 4 November

Thekua and the other prasad are cooked through the day on earthen chulhas fired with mango wood. In the evening the family walks to the water, and the vrati stands in it to offer arghya to the setting sun, 5:07 PM in Patna. At the ghat, lamps sit under a canopy of five sugarcane stalks, a rite Badikilaya calls kasi bharna.

Day 4: Usha Arghya, Friday 5 November

The family is back at the water before dawn for the arghya to the rising sun, 6:00 AM in Patna. Only then does the vrati break the fast, the parana; Badikilaya records the first bite as ginger with sugar.

Sandhya and Usha arghya times for 8 cities in 2027

Arghya follows the sun, so the minute moves with the city. These are sunset on Thursday 4 November and sunrise on Friday 5 November 2027, in IST except Kathmandu; we computed them with NOAA's sunrise equation, and they match Drik Panchang's city pages to the minute.

• Kolkata: sunset 4:58 PM, sunrise 5:43 AM; 12 h 45 min between the two arghyas.
• Patna: sunset 5:07 PM, sunrise 6:00 AM; 12 h 53 min.
• Ranchi: sunset 5:09 PM, sunrise 5:56 AM; 12 h 47 min.
• Varanasi: sunset 5:15 PM, sunrise 6:08 AM; 12 h 53 min.
• Kathmandu: sunset 5:18 PM, sunrise 6:17 AM Nepal time; 12 h 59 min.
• Delhi: sunset 5:34 PM, sunrise 6:36 AM; 13 h 2 min.
• Surat: sunset 6:01 PM, sunrise 6:43 AM; 12 h 42 min.
• Mumbai: sunset 6:04 PM, sunrise 6:40 AM; 12 h 36 min.

Kolkata's evening arghya is 66 minutes ahead of Mumbai's. A mother finishing the arghya at a Patna ghat at 5:07 PM has a son in Mumbai with 57 minutes of daylight left, which is the window for a video call. A high bank, buildings or haze hide the sun a few minutes sooner than these flat-horizon times.

How long the nirjala fast really lasts: 36 h 53 min in Patna

"Thirty-six hours" is a rounded figure. From Kharna's sunset on Wednesday to Friday's sunrise, the waterless stretch in 2027 is 36 h 53 min in Patna, 37 h 1 min in Delhi, 36 h 45 min in Kolkata and 36 h 36 min in Mumbai. The real fast runs from the Kharna meal to the parana, so it shifts by an hour or so either way.

That is a real strain for some bodies. A case report by Sharma and Prashar in the Indian Journal of Medical Biochemistry describes a 28-year-old woman from rural Bihar who developed jaundice after a two-day Chhath fast; tests showed Gilbert's syndrome, a usually harmless inherited condition that prolonged fasting can unmask. Anyone with diabetes, on daily medicines, pregnant or elderly should see a doctor before Tuesday 2 November about keeping the vow.

Hospitals feel the festival too. A study at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Patna, in the International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health (26 July 2019), found outpatient visits across nine super-speciality departments fell 18% in the 2018 Chhath month against that year's monthly median, with similar dips in 2016 and 2017. If a parent has a check-up due, book it before Diwali week.

Chhath 2027 holidays: what the central and Bihar orders say

Chhath is not a national gazetted holiday. The Department of Personnel and Training's holiday order for 2027, dated July 2026, lists "Pratihar Shashthi or Surya Shashthi (Chhath Puja)" on Thursday 4 November as a restricted holiday, and a central employee in Delhi may take any two restricted holidays a year. Outside Delhi, committees in each state capital pick three extra holidays from a list of twelve that includes Chhath Pooja, so central offices in one state can close while another's stay open.

Bihar's own 2027 list for state offices was notified on 15 October 2026. We could not open the notification, so we do not print its Chhath dates; check the General Administration Department's order before planning leave.

Chhath away from Bihar: migrant families and the trip home

Chhath is the festival that brings Bihar's migrants home. A July 2020 brief by UNICEF and the Population Council Institute on Bihar's migrant households, written about the COVID-19 lockdown rather than festivals, estimated that about half of migrant households might see a member return, and that most returnees meant to go back within four to five months. We read only its abstract, which is enough to show how many Bihar homes run across two places.

In 2027 Diwali is a Friday holiday, but Chhath fills the next week, so being at the ghat for Usha Arghya means four days of leave plus the Thursday restricted holiday. Those who stay in Delhi, Surat or Mumbai make the ghat where they are, on river banks, lakes and society ponds; a family in Surat offers the evening arghya at 6:01 PM, 54 minutes after relatives in Patna.

If you cannot be at the ghat in 2027: four options compared

Four ways to be part of Chhath from another city, with the 2027 timing and the SubhSandesh figure behind each:

Only the video call happens during the arghya itself, and nothing on this list stands in for carrying the daura to the water.

SubhSandesh has no Chhath page, and passing a Diwali card off as one would be dishonest. What fits is the week before: SubhSandesh's interactive Happy Diwali card is a Diwali page for one person, with a diya at their door carrying your tag, sky lanterns holding up to six photos and a letter in a shagun liffafa, opened from a private link in any browser. Send it on Friday 29 October to the parent who will be making thekua the next week.

For a migrant husband or wife who cannot get leave, the miss-you page with a countdown to your next visit home fits better, because it is built for a partner. Of 214 miss-you pages made since July 2026, 43.5% were password-protected; two months of data says nothing about festivals.

When a link is the wrong way to mark Chhath 2027

Between 5:07 PM on Thursday and 6:00 AM on Friday in Patna, the vrati is fasting and at the water, not reading messages, and a notification then is an interruption. Send anything before Nahay Khay on 2 November or after the parana on 5 November.

Many vratis are grandmothers with a basic phone or none, and a link means nothing to them; a call after parana or a relative who goes in your place does more. If you can get the leave, go: no page carries a basket of thekua to the ghat.

Sources

• Badikilaya, G., Atna Journal of Tourism Studies 14(2), online 17 January 2021.
• Sharma, H. K. and Prashar, S., Indian Journal of Medical Biochemistry, 2018.
• Pandey, A. et al., International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health, 26 July 2019.
• Department of Personnel and Training, F. No. 12/2/2023-JCA, 2027 holidays, July 2026.
• UNICEF and Population Council Institute, Bihar migrant households brief, 15 July 2020 (abstract read).
• Drik Panchang, 2027 Chhath pages for eight cities (date references, read 22 October 2026).