Dhanteras 2026: Friday 6 November by the Evening Rule, and the Working Shown
Published 27 August 2026 · Last updated 27 August 2026
Dhanteras is the trayodashi of the dark half of Kartika, and in 2026 that tithi straddles two civil days. At the 06:00 IST reference hour the trayodashi prevails on Saturday 7 November. At the pradosh evening hour, which is when Dhanteras is actually observed, it prevails on Friday 6 November. The evening convention governs the observance, so the buying evening is Friday 6 November, and both readings are printed here.
Most pages print one date without saying which convention produced it, which is why two respectable sites can disagree by a day and both look wrong. The disagreement is not an error. It is a convention choice, and it is checkable: the ephemeris puts the Moon and Sun 336 degrees apart, the start of the twenty eighth tithi, during the daylight hours of 6 November, so the trayodashi is running by that evening and has passed into chaturdashi by the evening of the 7th.
The computed sequence
| Civil date | Tithi at 06:00 IST | Tithi at 18:30 IST | Observance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friday 6 November | Dwadashi (27) | Trayodashi (28) | Dhanteras evening |
| Saturday 7 November | Trayodashi (28) | Chaturdashi (29) | Dhanteras by sunrise convention; Kali Chaudas evening |
| Sunday 8 November | Chaturdashi (29) | Amavasya (30) | Diwali, Lakshmi Puja |
| Monday 9 November | Amavasya (30) | Pratipada (1) | Amavasya at sunrise; Govardhan Puja follows |
Computed on the Swiss Ephemeris under the True Pushya Paksha ayanamsa at 06:00 and 18:30 IST. The exact tithi boundary hours shift by a few minutes with locality; the day assignments above do not.
The Pushya day before the festival
The Moon occupies Pushya, the nakshatra the tradition favours most for acquisition, on Sunday 1 November 2026. A Pushya day falling on the weekend one week before Dhanteras is the kind of window jewellers advertise heavily, and this one is real rather than promotional: the position is checkable in any ephemeris. For buyers who prefer the classical acquisition star to the festival crowd, 1 November is the quieter computed window.
What this page does not claim
Nothing here says gold will rise or fall around Dhanteras. Tempora's gold work lives on the tracker as dated calls with stated conditions, where being wrong is recorded. This page is the calendar layer: which day the tithi actually falls, shown with the working, because that is the question the date pages answer badly. The market question is a different question and it is answered in a different register, with a scoreboard.
Method
Tithi is the angular separation of Moon and Sun divided into 12 degree steps. The computation runs at two reference hours, sunrise approximated at 06:00 IST and pradosh approximated at 18:30 IST, on the Swiss Ephemeris under the True Pushya Paksha ayanamsa by PVRN Rao. The 2027 gold buying calendar documents the full-year version of this computation including every Pushya window.
Questions
What is the Dhanteras 2026 date?
Friday 6 November 2026 by the evening observance convention, which is the one that governs Dhanteras. The trayodashi tithi prevails at the pradosh hour on the 6th. Sites using the sunrise convention will print Saturday 7 November. Both are computed on this page.
When is Diwali 2026?
Sunday 8 November 2026. The amavasya tithi prevails at the evening hour on the 8th, which is when Lakshmi Puja is observed.
Is there a Pushya nakshatra day before Diwali 2026?
Yes. The Moon occupies Pushya on Sunday 1 November 2026, one week before the festival, a classical acquisition window that falls on a weekend this year.
Is Dhanteras a good day to buy gold as an investment?
This page answers the calendar question only. Tempora publishes market calls separately on the public tracker, dated in advance with the condition that would prove each one wrong, and gold entries live there rather than on a festival page.
Read next
This page was first published on 27 August 2026 and last updated on 27 August 2026. It documents the computed tithi calendar for the 2026 Dhanteras and Diwali period. Not financial, medical or personal advice.