Data study · Vivaha-Muhurta 2026
The 2026 Wedding Muhurat Report
We ran our panchang engine across every day of 2026 at the Ujjain meridian and counted the days that pass the strict classical test for a Hindu wedding. The answer is 18, and how those 18 days are spread across the year says a great deal about when couples can and cannot marry.
Month by month
The wedding days of 2026 are not spread evenly. They cluster into a longer first-half season and a short window at the end of the year, with four months emptied out entirely by the adhik maas and Chaturmas. The bar shows the count; the note explains the constraint.
| Month | Days | Share | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 2 | First half lost to Dhanurmas kharmas (Sun in Sagittarius to Jan 14). | |
| February | 3 | — | |
| March | 1 | Second half lost to Meenmas kharmas (Sun enters Pisces on Mar 15). | |
| April | 3 | First fortnight still under Meenmas; season reopens after Apr 14. | |
| May | 0 | none | No date. Adhik Jyeshtha maas opens May 17; the earlier days carry no clean vivaha nakshatra. |
| June | 1 | Adhik maas runs to Jun 15; the lone date sits in the nija Jyeshtha that follows. | |
| July | 3 | Season closes at Devshayani Ekadashi (Jul 25); all three dates precede it. | |
| August | 0 | none | Entirely inside Chaturmas. No wedding date. |
| September | 0 | none | Entirely inside Chaturmas. No wedding date. |
| October | 0 | none | Entirely inside Chaturmas. No wedding date. |
| November | 2 | Chaturmas lifts at Prabodhini Ekadashi (about Nov 21); the season reopens. | |
| December | 3 | Season closes again when Dhanurmas kharmas begins on Dec 17. | |
| Total | 18 | Strict all-limbs count, Ujjain reference meridian. |
What the numbers show
124 days without a single wedding date
The longest gap in the 2026 calendar runs from July 24 straight to November 25, a stretch of 124 days with no marriage muhurat. It is the Chaturmas pause, and it is the defining feature of the year for anyone planning a Hindu wedding.
Four months carry no wedding date at all
May, August, September and October return zero strict vivaha days. August, September and October fall wholly inside Chaturmas; May is swallowed by the adhik Jyeshtha maas that opens on May 17, with the earlier days carrying no clean vivaha nakshatra.
The year splits into two short wedding seasons
Thirteen of the eighteen dates fall before Chaturmas, between January 16 and July 24, broken by the May adhik maas and the two kharmas stretches. The remaining five arrive in a tight post-Chaturmas window from November 25 to December 6, before Dhanurmas kharmas closes the year on December 17.
No runaway month; the fullest carry only three
There is no bumper wedding month in 2026. February, April, July and December each return three dates, and no month returns more. Couples hoping for a wide choice in a single month will not find one this year.
Hasta is the workhorse nakshatra of 2026
The Moon in Hasta accounts for four of the eighteen dates, more than any other lunar mansion. Rohini and Swati follow with three each. These are the classical vivaha nakshatras doing most of the load-bearing this year.
Why the gaps exist
The empty months are not an artefact of the calculation. They are the classical prohibited seasons, and the mainstream all-India almanac shows the same blanks. Four windows account for every gap in 2026.
| Window | Dates in 2026 | Why weddings pause |
|---|---|---|
| Chaturmas | Jul 25 to about Nov 21, 2026 | From Devshayani Ekadashi to Prabodhini Ekadashi, Vishnu is held to be asleep and no marriage is solemnised. This is the single longest wedding pause of the year and it empties August, September and October completely. |
| Adhik Jyeshtha maas | May 17 to Jun 15, 2026 | An intercalary (leap) lunar month, Purushottam maas. No marriage is fixed inside it. 2026 carries an adhik Jyeshtha, which is why the summer season resumes only in the nija Jyeshtha that follows. |
| Dhanurmas kharmas | Dec 17, 2025 to Jan 14, 2026, and again Dec 17 to Dec 31, 2026 | While the Sun transits Sagittarius (Dhanu), the solar month of kharmas or malmas suspends weddings. It closes the first fortnight of January and reopens at the end of 2026. |
| Meenmas kharmas | Mar 15 to Apr 14, 2026 | The second kharmas of the year, while the Sun transits Pisces (Meen). It removes the back half of March and the first fortnight of April. |
The 18 dates
Here are the days themselves, with the lunar mansion the Moon occupies on each. Read this as the national shortlist, not the final answer. The exact muhurat instant still has to be fixed against the couple's charts, and a borderline date can move by a day in a distant city.
| Date | Weekday | Nakshatra |
|---|---|---|
| 16 Jan | Friday | Mula |
| 25 Jan | Sunday | Revati |
| 6 Feb | Friday | Hasta |
| 20 Feb | Friday | Uttara Bhadrapada |
| 26 Feb | Thursday | Mrigashira |
| 8 Mar | Sunday | Swati |
| 20 Apr | Monday | Rohini |
| 26 Apr | Sunday | Magha |
| 29 Apr | Wednesday | Hasta |
| 25 Jun | Thursday | Swati |
| 12 Jul | Sunday | Rohini |
| 20 Jul | Monday | Hasta |
| 24 Jul | Friday | Anuradha |
| 25 Nov | Wednesday | Rohini |
| 26 Nov | Thursday | Mrigashira |
| 3 Dec | Thursday | Uttara Phalguni |
| 4 Dec | Friday | Hasta |
| 6 Dec | Sunday | Swati |
To scope these against your own city and both birth charts, open the marriage muhurat calculator. For the classical month-by-month framing and the rules behind the shortlist, see the Marriage Muhurat 2026 guide.
How this was computed
Every figure on this page comes from our own ephemeris engine, run for each day of 2026 at the Ujjain meridian (23.1765 N, 75.7885 E), the reference longitude Indian astronomy has used for a pan-India panchang since the days of Ujjayini. For each day the engine returns the tithi, nakshatra, yoga, karana and weekday, and scores them against the classical marriage rule-set: the favoured vivaha nakshatras, the forbidden ones, the avoided tithis, the Tuesday and Saturday bar, the inauspicious yogas and the Vishti karana.
On top of that day-level scoring we removed the seasonal prohibitions the almanac observes but a single day's panchang does not carry: the adhik Jyeshtha maas, the two kharmas stretches while the Sun sits in Sagittarius and Pisces, and Chaturmas from Devshayani Ekadashi to Prabodhini Ekadashi. A day counts only if it clears every limb and falls outside all of those seasons. The result was then cross-checked against the mainstream all-India almanac, which shows the same empty months.
Two honest caveats. This is the strict count; broader lists that relax a limb, or a community that does not keep Chaturmas, will run higher. And because a tithi at the ritual hour shifts a little with longitude, a borderline date at Ujjain can fall a day either side in a far-off city. Treat this as the national reference and confirm your own date locally.
Find your own wedding date
The calculator scores every day for your city and layers both birth charts, so you get a shortlist made for you rather than the whole country. Free.
Open the marriage muhurat calculatorPlanning the whole year? See the 2026 Hindu festival calendar for every festival date alongside the wedding season.
FAQ
- How many marriage muhurat dates are there in 2026?
- By the strict count used in this study, 18 days in 2026 satisfy every classical vivaha limb at the Ujjain reference meridian and fall outside all four wedding-prohibited seasons. Broader almanac lists that relax one limb, for example accepting the Dwadashi tithi, run higher, and a couple's own charts will trim the list further. We publish the conservative figure so the number is defensible rather than inflated.
- Why are there no wedding dates from August to October 2026?
- Those three months fall entirely inside Chaturmas, the four-month window from Devshayani Ekadashi (July 25) to Prabodhini Ekadashi (about November 21) during which Vishnu is held to be asleep and Hindu tradition solemnises no marriage. The mainstream all-India almanac shows the same empty stretch.
- What happened to May 2026?
- 2026 carries an adhik Jyeshtha maas, an intercalary leap month running roughly May 17 to June 15, during which no marriage is fixed. The days of early May that sit before it carry no clean vivaha nakshatra, so the month returns zero strict dates and the wedding season resumes only in the nija Jyeshtha that follows, with June 25.
- How were these numbers calculated?
- The app's own panchang engine was run for every day of 2026 at the Ujjain meridian, the classical reference longitude of Indian astronomy. Each day was scored against the marriage rule-set (favoured and forbidden nakshatras, avoided tithis, the Tuesday and Saturday bar, inauspicious yogas and the Vishti karana bar), and then the adhik maas, kharmas and Chaturmas seasons were overlaid to remove the prohibited windows. Every figure is reproducible from the regeneration harness in the repository.
- Will these dates be the same in my city?
- Mostly, but not always. A tithi or nakshatra at the ritual hour shifts slightly with longitude, so a borderline date at Ujjain can move by a day in the far South or East. Treat this as the national reference and confirm your own city with the calculator, which computes the window for your location and layers the couple's charts.
- Is a date from this list enough to fix a wedding?
- It is the right starting point, not the final word. A day passing this filter is astronomically clean for marriage, but the exact muhurat instant (the lagna) still has to be set against the bride's and groom's birth charts, their chandra-bala and tara-bala. Use the list to shortlist and the calculator to finish.