Chhath Puja 2026 Dates and Arghya Times: Nahay Khay to Usha Arghya

Chhath Puja 2026 runs over four days, from Friday 13 November to Monday 16 November. The main day, with the evening arghya to the setting sun, is Sunday 15 November. That's exactly one week after Diwali, which falls on Sunday 8 November this year.

Below you'll find the dates, the sunset and sunrise times for the two arghyas in major cities, and a simple plan so nothing slips during a very busy week. The thing that slips most often is the pre-dawn start on the last morning.

Chhath Puja 2026 dates at a glance

Day	Date	What happens
Day 1: Nahay Khay	Friday 13 November	Holy bath, cleaning the house, a simple satvik meal
Day 2: Lohanda and Kharna	Saturday 14 November	Fast through the day; kheer and roti offered and eaten in the evening
Day 3: Sandhya Arghya	Sunday 15 November	Evening arghya to the setting sun at the ghat
Day 4: Usha Arghya and Parana	Monday 16 November	Arghya to the rising sun at dawn, then the fast is broken

These are the dates in Drik Panchang's 2026 Chhath calendar, which gives the same four dates for Patna, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Ranchi, Varanasi and Lucknow. Shashthi tithi itself begins at 11:23 PM on 14 November and ends at 2:00 AM on 16 November (Patna times).

Sandhya Arghya and Usha Arghya times 2026 by city

The arghyas follow the sun, so the time depends on where you are. These are Drik Panchang's sunset times for Sunday 15 November and sunrise times for Monday 16 November:

City	Sandhya Arghya (sunset, Sun 15 Nov)	Usha Arghya (sunrise, Mon 16 Nov)
Patna	5:01 PM	6:07 AM
Ranchi	5:04 PM	6:03 AM
Varanasi	5:10 PM	6:16 AM
Lucknow	5:16 PM	6:26 AM
Delhi	5:28 PM	6:44 AM
Kolkata	4:53 PM	5:50 AM
Mumbai	6:00 PM	6:46 AM

Two things to keep in mind:

• These are sunrise and sunset times, not departure times. Families usually reach the ghat well before sunset and well before dawn, to find a place and stand in the water as the sun goes down or comes up. Your ghat committee or family elders will know how early people gather at your local ghat.
• Kolkata is the earliest of these cities. Sunrise there is almost an hour earlier than in Mumbai or Delhi. If you're travelling to a different city for Chhath, use that city's times, not the ones from home.

If your town isn't listed, Drik Panchang lets you pick your own city on the same page.

What happens on each day

Nahay Khay (13 November). The vrati (the person keeping the fast) takes a holy bath. The house and the path to the ghat are cleaned, and a simple satvik meal is cooked and eaten.

Kharna (14 November). The vrati fasts through the day without water. In the evening, kheer made with jaggery and roti are offered and then eaten as prasad. After this meal the main fast begins. It is nirjala, meaning no food and no water, and it lasts about 36 hours, until the morning arghya on day 4.

Sandhya Arghya (15 November). The prasad is prepared during the day, and in the late afternoon the family carries the baskets of offerings to the river or pond. The arghya is offered to the setting sun.

Usha Arghya and Parana (16 November). Before dawn, everyone returns to the ghat. The arghya is offered to the rising sun, and afterwards the vrati breaks the fast (parana).

Chhath is celebrated mainly in Bihar, Jharkhand and eastern Uttar Pradesh, and in Nepal. Today you'll also see it on ghats and riverbanks in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and abroad. There is a second, smaller Chhath in spring, called Chaiti Chhath.

Working out your wake-up time for Usha Arghya

The last morning is the one people worry about. Everyone is tired after a late evening at the ghat, the alarm is set for an unusual hour, and the vrati is in the second day of a waterless fast.

Count back from sunrise. Here's an example for Patna:

Step	Example (Patna)
Sunrise on 16 November	6:07 AM
Be in place at the ghat, about 45 minutes before	5:20 AM
Travel to the ghat	30 minutes, so leave by 4:50 AM
Get ready and load the baskets	40 minutes, so wake up by 4:10 AM

Swap in your own city's sunrise, your travel time and your family's routine. In Kolkata the same plan means waking before 4 AM.

A tip: if the person who needs to be up first is an elderly vrati, set the wake-up for whoever is driving or carrying the baskets as well. That way it doesn't all depend on one phone alarm.

A reminder plan for Chhath week

Chhath week is full of fixed times that come back to back, right after the Diwali rush. These reminders cover the parts that most often go wrong:

When	Reminder
A few days before	Shopping list: soop and daura (bamboo baskets), fruit, sugarcane, puja items. Markets get very crowded close to the festival.
Fri 13 Nov, morning	Nahay Khay: bath, cleaning, satvik meal.
Sat 14 Nov, before sunset	Kharna prasad ready; the fast begins after the evening meal.
Sun 15 Nov, early afternoon	Prasad and baskets packed; leave for the ghat with time to spare before sunset.
Mon 16 Nov, pre-dawn	Wake-up call for Usha Arghya, worked back from your city's sunrise.
Mon 16 Nov, after the arghya	Parana, and check in on the vrati.

A note on health. A 36-hour waterless fast is hard on the body, especially for older people. If the vrati has diabetes or a heart or kidney condition, or takes regular medicines, talk to their doctor well before the festival. Ask how to handle the fast and the medicines, and follow that advice.

Travelling home for Chhath? Mind the Tatkal window

Many people travel home to Bihar and eastern UP in the days between Bhai Dooj (11 November) and Nahay Khay. If you don't have a confirmed ticket yet, Tatkal is often the last option, and it opens at a fixed time:

• AC classes: 10:00 AM, one day before the train leaves its origin station (not your boarding station).
• Non-AC classes, such as sleeper: 11:00 AM, also one day before.
• Since July 2025, booking Tatkal online needs an Aadhaar-authenticated IRCTC account and an OTP. Agents can't book in the first 30 minutes of each window.

So for an AC journey on a train that starts its run on Thursday 12 November, Tatkal opens at 10:00 AM on Wednesday 11 November, which is Bhai Dooj itself. That's exactly the kind of morning when a booking window gets forgotten. Set a reminder for 9:50 AM, logged in and with your Aadhaar-linked phone at hand. Railway rules do change, so check the current Tatkal rules on IRCTC before the day.

How ReminderIt can help

A phone alarm is easy to switch off half-asleep. A ringing phone call is much harder to sleep through. ReminderIt calls your phone at the time you set and reads out your reminder in a natural voice, for example: "It's 4:10. Wake up for Usha Arghya. Leave for the ghat by 4:50." If you miss the call, the reminder arrives on WhatsApp too.

You can set it all up just by sending a WhatsApp message, such as "Call me on Monday 16 November at 4:10am to wake up for Usha Arghya" or "Call me at 9:50am on 11 November for Tatkal booking". There's no app to install, and the call can be in Hindi as well as English.

If your mother or father is the vrati and lives in another city, you can set reminders that ring their phone instead, for the Kharna evening, the ghat departures or the pre-dawn start. They confirm their number once with a short verification call, so nobody gets calls they didn't agree to. Our guide on setting a reminder for someone else shows how.

There's a 7-day free trial with 7 reminder calls (3 if your number is in a country where calls cost more; India isn't one of them). That's enough for the whole of Chhath week. After that it's one plan: ₹299 a month in India, or $7 a month elsewhere.

For the rest of the festive fortnight, see our Diwali 2026 dates and muhurat times, from Dhanteras to Bhai Dooj. And if you regularly need to wake up before dawn, our guide to waking up for Fajr has more tips that also work for an early arghya.

The short answer

Chhath Puja 2026 is from Friday 13 November (Nahay Khay) to Monday 16 November (Usha Arghya). Kharna is on Saturday 14 November, and the main day, Sandhya Arghya, is on Sunday 15 November. In Patna, sunset on 15 November is at 5:01 PM and sunrise on 16 November is at 6:07 AM. In Delhi the times are 5:28 PM and 6:44 AM, and in Kolkata 4:53 PM and 5:50 AM. Reach the ghat well before these times, and count back from sunrise to set your wake-up for the last morning.

Sources: Drik Panchang, Chhath Puja calendar 2026 and Chhath Puja 2026 date and time (choose your city on the page); Wikipedia, Chhath; NewsGram, Bihar: Chhath devotees offer Kharna Puja, 36-hour Nirjala fast begins, 23 March 2026; News On AIR, Railways announces new rules for Tatkal tickets; Wikipedia, Tatkal scheme.