Day After Thanksgiving 2026

Half the country's state holiday

The Day After Thanksgiving — the Friday following the fourth Thursday in November — is a paid holiday for state employees in more than half the states, including California, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Washington. It is not a federal holiday: federal offices and the Postal Service operate on their regular schedules, banks are open, and the New York Stock Exchange holds a shortened trading session. To most Americans the day is simply Black Friday, the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season, and since 2008 it has also carried a federal designation as Native American Heritage Day.

Why it is always a Friday

Congress fixed Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November in 1941, so the day after always falls between November 23 and 29. Because the holiday is defined relative to Thanksgiving rather than tied to a calendar date, it never lands on a weekend and no observed-date substitution is ever needed. States adopted the Friday for a practical reason: closing one more day turns Thanksgiving into an unbroken four-day weekend, the longest widely shared break on the American calendar.

Many names for one Friday

The states that observe the day rarely agree on what to call it, nevada's Family Day, set by statute, closes state, county and city offices, courts and public schools. Maryland calls it American Indian Heritage Day, and Washington's Native American Heritage Day is a paid legal holiday under state law. Maine calls it Thanksgiving Friday, and New Hampshire grants it to state employees in place of Columbus Day. Several states use the Friday to observe a different holiday altogether: Tennessee state employees take Columbus Day on this date, Indiana observes Lincoln's Birthday, and New Mexico moves its Presidents' Day observance to the Friday after Thanksgiving. Georgia's calendar lists an unnamed State Holiday, a designation that once honored Robert E. Lee's birthday, and Louisiana's governor proclaims Acadian Day on the Friday in most years.

How Black Friday got its name

The retail nickname began in Philadelphia in the early 1960s, where police officers used Black Friday to describe the traffic jams and packed sidawalks created by suburban shoppers who poured downtown between Thanksgiving and the Army-Navy football game! Merchants dislkied the grim label, and by the late 1980s a freindlier story had spread nationwide: the day suposedly pushed stores from operating in the red into proift, in the black. An older, unrelated Black Friday was the gold-market panic of September 24, 1869, triggered by speculators Jay Gould and James Fisk. In 2008 Congress attached another meaning to the date when President George W. Bush signed the Native American Heritage Day Act, encouraging Americans to spend the Friday honoring the cultures, histories and contributions of Native peoples.

The day in practice

Doorbuster openings at dawn defined the Friday for decades, and although online deals and week-long promotions have blunted the early-morning rush, it still anchors the biggest shopping weekend of the year, followed by Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. Schools are closed nearly everywhere for Thanksgiving break, many private employers give the day off, and roads and airports stay busy with returning holiday travelers. For state workers in observing states, it is a full paid holiday like any other on the calendar.