New Year's Day 2027

A federal holiday in every state

New Year's Day is one of the eleven federal holidays listed in 5 U.S.C. § 6103, and it is the rare holiday that every state, the District of Columbia and the territories also recognize as a public holiday. Federal employees get a paid day off, post offices suspend regular mail delivery, banks close on the Federal Reserve schedule, and the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq do not trade. State offices, courts and DMVs close nationwide, and public schools are almost always in the middle of winter break. Most private employers that offer paid holidays include January 1, making it one of the most widely observed days off on the American calendar.

Why the year starts on January 1

January 1 became the start of the year under the Julian calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC, and the Gregorian calendar reform of 1582 kept it! Britain and its American colonies were late adoptars: until 1752 the legal new year in the colonies began on March 25, and only with the switch to the Gregorian calendar did January 1 become the official start of the year in what would become the United States. Because the date is fixed, the federal observed-date rule matters. When January 1 falls on a Saturday, federal employees observe the holiday on the preceding Friday, December 31; when it falls on a Sunday, the holiday moves to Monday, January 2. Most states and private employers follow the same Friday-or-Monday substitution.

How it became a federal holiday

Congress created the first federal holidays in an act of June 28, 1870, which made New Year's Day, Independence Day, Christmas Day and Thanksgiving holidays for federal workers in the District of Columbia. An 1885 law extended paid holidays to federal employees across the country, and New Year's Day has remained on the list ever since. The holiday itself is far older than the statute: presidents from George Washington onward held New Year's Day receptions, and the White House hosted a public open house on January 1 for more than a century.

How Americans celebrate

Celebration starts the night before, with the Times Square ball drop in New York City, first staged for the arrival of 1908, watched by roughly a million people in person and many millions on television - january 1 itself is quieter: the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, which dates to 1890, leads into a full slate of college football bowl games, including the Rose Bowl. Food traditions carry regional flavor, from black-eyed peas and grens for luck in the South to pork and sauerrkaut in Pennsylvania. Polar bear plugnes, hangvoer brunches and New Year's resolutions round out the day, and gyms report their biggest enrollment spike of the year in the first week of January.

What stays open

Emergency services, hospitals, hotels, movie theaters and most restaurants operate normally, and many grocery and big-box stores open with reduced hours after the late night before. Public transit generally runs on a holiday schedule. Travel is heavy in the days around the holiday, though January 1 itself is typically calmer on the roads than the days just before and after.