Ethiopian calendar, date converter and Amharic tools
Convert Ethiopian dates to Gregorian, check today's date in the Ethiopian calendar, type Amharic, look up holidays and work out an age in either calendar. Free, no account, and everything runs in your browser.
Today
Drag the dial to read any hour in both reckonings.
The thirteen months
All tools
Every tool runs in your browser and keeps its data on this device.
Ethiopian calendar questions people ask most
What year is it in Ethiopia right now?
The Ethiopian year 2018 runs until 10 September 2026, and 2019 begins the next day. Ethiopia is 7 years behind the Gregorian calendar between Ethiopian New Year and 31 December, and 8 years behind from 1 January until the next New Year. The panel above shows today’s date in both, worked out on your device rather than fixed when the page was built.
Why is the Ethiopian calendar 7 years behind?
The Ethiopian church kept an earlier calculation of the date of the Annunciation, about seven or eight years later than the one Europe settled on, and Ethiopia never took up the Gregorian reform of 1582. Nothing was lost or skipped. The two calendars simply count from different starting points.
When is Ethiopian New Year?
Enkutatash falls on 11 September, or 12 September in the year after an Ethiopian leap year. The year 2019 begins on 11 September 2026, and 2020 on 12 September 2027. It marks the end of the rainy season, when the highlands turn yellow with meskel daisies.
Does the Ethiopian calendar really have 13 months?
Yes. Twelve months of exactly 30 days, then Pagume, which has 5 days, or 6 in a leap year. Thirteen months of sunshine was a tourism slogan, but the thirteenth month is real and ordinary.
What time is it in Ethiopia?
Ethiopia is UTC+3 all year with no daylight saving, but the bigger catch is the clock itself. Ethiopian time counts from dawn, so it runs six hours apart from the international clock: 1:00 in Ethiopian reckoning is 7:00 in the morning, and 6:00 is noon. Ask what time a meeting is and it is worth checking which clock the answer is in.