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Countdown

Time until the Fourth of July

4 July, Independence Day in the United States.

Counting down to the Fourth of July

Sunday, 4 July 2027
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Midnight at the start of Sunday, 4 July 2027

Counting from your device clock.

What is the Fourth of July?

Independence Day is 4 July, marking the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The Continental Congress actually voted for independence on 2 July, which is why John Adams expected the second to be the date people remembered. It is a federal holiday, and when the 4th falls on a Saturday the observed day off moves to the Friday before, or to the Monday after when it falls on a Sunday. This countdown targets the 4th itself.

The days either side carry most of the load. Public fireworks displays are permitted and booked months ahead, campsites and short-haul flights for the surrounding weekend sell out early, and road traffic peaks on the afternoon before and the evening after. When the 4th falls on a Tuesday or a Thursday many employers close the adjoining Monday or Friday, which turns the week into a four-day one and empties offices for longer than the holiday itself. Consumer fireworks are legal in some states and banned in others, and a number of cities have moved to drone or laser displays after dry summers made the traditional kind risky. Animal shelters and veterans' groups campaign each year about the noise, and shelters report their busiest intake of the year on the 5th.

Denmark has held the largest celebration outside the United States since before the First World War, in the Rebild hills of Jutland, paid for by Danish-American emigrants. The Philippines kept the same date as its own independence day until 1962, when that moved to 12 June, and the July date survives there as Republic Day. Expatriate clubs in London and Sydney run smaller versions. The detail people get wrong is the signing: Congress approved the text on the 4th, but most delegates put their names to the engrossed copy on 2 August, so no single ceremony matches the date the country keeps.

The next one falls on Sunday, 4 July 2027, and this page counts down to the midnight that starts it in whatever time zone your browser reports.

The first anniversary, and an unlikely coincidence

Fireworks were attached from the very first anniversary. Philadelphia marked 4 July 1777 with bells, a salute from the ships in the harbour and a display in the evening, which is more or less the programme John Adams had predicted in his letter about the second. Congress made the day a federal holiday in 1870 with no pay attached, and federal workers were only paid for it from 1938. The public reading of the Declaration, which is how most people first heard it, survives in the morning ceremonies some towns still hold.

Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on 4 July 1826, the fiftieth anniversary, within hours of one another and several hundred miles apart. James Monroe died on the same date five years later. Three of the first five presidents therefore died on the anniversary of a document two of them had spent the summer of 1776 arguing over, which struck their contemporaries as providential and has never been explained as anything other than coincidence and a quantity of old men.

Frequently asked questions

How is this countdown calculated?

The target is midnight at the start of Sunday, 4 July 2027, read in your device's own time zone. The date is always 4 July, so the page sets it against the year you are in and rolls to the next one as soon as it goes by.

When does the day off actually fall?

The federal rule is that a holiday landing on a Saturday is observed on the Friday before and one landing on a Sunday on the Monday after, so federal offices and banks close on the substitute day. Private employers commonly follow it without being obliged to, and the exchanges publish a calendar of their own. Nothing about the 4th itself moves, which is why this page counts to the date rather than to anyone's day away from work.

Why is it usually called the Fourth of July?

Both names are correct and the number is the older habit. The statute calls it Independence Day and that is what appears on the federal holiday list, but the ordinal has been the everyday name since the eighteenth century, used by people who would never refer to the fourth of any other month. The phrase now works as a noun on its own, which is unusual for a date and is a fair measure of how early the usage settled.

Where do the fireworks come from?

Overwhelmingly from China, and largely from one part of it: Liuyang in Hunan province has made fireworks for centuries and supplies most of what the American consumer market sells. Professional display shells are a separate trade with its own licensing, insurance and operator certification, which is why a municipal show is booked many months ahead and cannot be rearranged at short notice. Container costs, shipping delays or an accident at a factory upstream turn into shortages by June, and that has happened more than once.