Kali Puja 2026 is Sunday night, 8 November — and its moment is midnight

In Bengal the Diwali Amavasya — the new-moon tithi, or lunar day — is first of all Kali Puja, also called Shyama Puja, and many households in Odisha and Assam keep it as Kali Puja too. The rest of India knows the same night for the Lakshmi Puja at dusk. The two rites share the tithi but not the hour. Lakshmi Puja belongs to pradosh, the window that opens at sunset. Kali Puja belongs to the deep of the night.

In 2026 that makes the date simple in India and less simple abroad. In every Indian city the Amavasya holds the middle of Sunday night, 8 November, and no other night. Across most of the diaspora the answer is the same. On the west coast of the United States it is not: there, the new moon holds the middle of Saturday night instead.

The rest of this guide shows why, city by city, and then turns to the night itself. The five days of the corridor sit around it: Dhanteras on Friday the 6th, Naraka Chaturdashi on Saturday evening and Sunday morning, the Amavasya on Sunday, and Govardhan Puja and Bhai Dooj on Tuesday the 10th.

What nishita is: the eighth muhurta of your own night

A rite in this tradition is tied to a tithi being present at a particular part of the day, called its kala. For Kali Puja that kala is nishita (निशीथ), the middle of the night. The custom Bengal keeps sets the puja in this window, and the household that keeps it watches for the night on which the Amavasya is running then.

Nishita is not 12:00 am. Our engine divides the night — from your sunset to the next sunrise — into fifteen equal parts called muhurtas, and takes the eighth, the one centred on the night’s true midpoint. It is the same window our festival calendar uses for the Janmashtami puja, described in our Janmashtami guide.

In Kolkata on 8 November the sun sets at 4:56 pm and rises at 5:45 am. Each muhurta of that night is about 51 minutes long, and the eighth runs from 10:55 pm to 11:46 pm. The clock’s midnight falls 14 minutes after the window closes. In Mumbai, where the sun sets an hour later on the same clock, the window runs from 11:57 pm to 12:48 am.

The Amavasya in full, and why no Indian city has two candidate nights

The tithi runs from 11:28:22 am on Sunday, 8 November to 12:32:07 pm on Monday, 9 November, Indian Standard Time. Put Saturday’s midnight against it and the Amavasya has not begun. Put Monday’s midnight against it and it has ended. Only Sunday’s midnight window sits inside it, and it sits inside it completely in every city below.

The table gives the window on Sunday night in local time. Read your own row: the window moves with your sunset and sunrise, so a time forwarded from another city can be more than an hour wrong.

• Guwahati — 10:41 pm to 11:33 pm
• Kolkata — 10:55 pm to 11:46 pm
• Bhubaneswar — 11:05 pm to 11:56 pm
• Patna — 11:07 pm to 11:59 pm
• Dhaka (Bangladesh time) — 11:16 pm to 12:08 am
• Delhi — 11:39 pm to 12:31 am
• Bengaluru — 11:39 pm to 12:28 am
• Mumbai — 11:57 pm to 12:48 am

Kali Puja abroad: Sunday for most of the world, Saturday in California

The Amavasya is one instant-to-instant span for the whole planet. What changes from city to city is where your midnight falls inside it. In London it begins at 5:58 am on Sunday and ends at 7:02 am on Monday local time, so Sunday’s midnight is inside it and Saturday’s is not. New York and Toronto see it begin at 12:58 am on Sunday, after Saturday’s window has closed. In all of these cities Kali Puja night is Sunday, the same night as in Kolkata.

Move west across the United States and the start of the Amavasya moves back into Saturday night. On the Pacific coast it begins at 9:58 pm on Saturday and ends at 11:02 pm on Sunday. Saturday’s midnight window is entirely inside it. Sunday’s window opens after it has ended — 8 minutes after in Los Angeles, 24 minutes after in San Francisco. So in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle the tithi points to Saturday night, 7 November, for Kali Puja.

The evening rite does not move with it. Lakshmi Puja’s pradosh window on Saturday evening still falls before the Amavasya begins, and on Sunday evening it is inside it, so a California household that keeps both rites keeps Kali Puja on Saturday night and Lakshmi Puja on Sunday evening.

• London — Sunday — 11:15 pm to 12:14 am
• Dubai — Sunday — 11:37 pm to 12:29 am
• Singapore — Sunday — 12:25 am to 1:12 am (after the clock’s midnight, still Sunday night)
• Sydney — Sunday — 12:18 am to 12:59 am (after the clock’s midnight, still Sunday night)
• New York — Sunday — 11:12 pm to 12:08 am
• Toronto — Sunday — 11:34 pm to 12:30 am
• Los Angeles — Saturday — 11:10 pm to 12:04 am
• San Francisco — Saturday — 11:26 pm to 12:21 am
• Seattle — Saturday — 11:25 pm to 12:22 am

Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Phoenix: both nights hold part of it

Between the two coasts the Amavasya begins inside Saturday’s midnight window or ends inside Sunday’s, so both nights hold part of it. Here the tradition has more than one way to choose, and we show the numbers rather than choose for you.

Our engine’s rule for a window-based rite takes the first night on which the tithi touches the window at all. That is the rule our calendar applies to Janmashtami and Bhai Dooj. On that rule every one of these cities keeps Saturday night. A family whose priest asks instead for the night on which the tithi fills the window keeps Sunday in Chicago, Houston and Dallas, and Saturday in Denver and Phoenix. Times are local.

Chicago is the clearest case of the difference. The Amavasya begins at 11:58 pm on Saturday, four minutes before that night’s window closes: 7 per cent of the window. On Sunday it fills all of it. Ask your family priest or your community’s temple which rule they follow, and keep the night they keep.

• Chicago — Saturday 11:07 pm to 12:02 am, 7 per cent — Sunday 11:07 pm to 12:03 am, 100 per cent
• Houston — Saturday 11:39 pm to 12:32 am, 63 per cent — Sunday 11:39 pm to 12:32 am, 100 per cent
• Dallas — Saturday 11:44 pm to 12:38 am, 74 per cent — Sunday 11:44 pm to 12:38 am, 100 per cent
• Denver — Saturday 11:16 pm to 12:11 am, 100 per cent — Sunday 11:16 pm to 12:12 am, 83 per cent
• Phoenix — Saturday 11:46 pm to 12:39 am, 100 per cent — Sunday 11:46 pm to 12:39 am, 31 per cent

Who Kali is: the Devi Mahatmya, and what came later

The oldest full telling is in the Devi Mahatmya, the seven hundred verses of the Markandeya Purana that households recite as the Durga Saptashati. In its seventh chapter the demons Chanda and Munda march on the Goddess. Her face darkens with anger, and from her brow springs Kali: dark, gaunt, garlanded with skulls, wielding a sword and a noose. She destroys the demon army and the two generals, and the Goddess names her Chamunda for it.

In the eighth chapter she returns against Raktabija, the demon from each drop of whose blood another demon rises. Kali drinks the blood before it can fall, and the demon is destroyed. Our Durga Saptashati guide explains how the thirteen chapters are recited at home.

The lolling tongue of the picture most Bengali homes know is already in the Purana’s description. One thing in that picture is not: Shiva lying beneath her foot. That comes from later devotional tradition. So do the Shyama Sangeet songs, the devotional songs to Kali sung on this night, which belong to Bengal’s own poets. We give both as tradition and do not attribute them to the Purana.

Bhoot Chaturdashi: the fourteen lamps of the night before

In Bengal the evening before Kali Puja is Bhoot Chaturdashi, the Chaturdashi of spirits. It is the same tithi the rest of India keeps as Naraka Chaturdashi, the subject of our Choti Diwali guide. By custom households light fourteen lamps — choddo prodip — around the house at dusk, for fourteen generations of ancestors, and many eat a dish of fourteen greens, choddo shaak, that day.

In 2026 that is Saturday evening, 7 November. In India the Chaturdashi holds Saturday’s dusk and the Amavasya has not yet begun. In California the same Saturday evening is still Chaturdashi at dusk, and the Amavasya begins later that night, so the fourteen lamps and the Kali Puja fall on one long Saturday night there.

The household night of Kali Puja, in order

In Bengal much of the night’s formal worship happens at a community pandal (a temporary shrine) or a temple, led by a priest. The steps below are the household side of the night, as families commonly keep it. Practice varies by family and region, so take this as a frame and not a rule. Mantras and the full order of worship come from your family priest; we do not print them.

Many families keep a light fast through the day and break it after the puja. Red hibiscus, jaba, is the flower most associated with Kali, and it is the offering most homes look for. Some temples keep older offering rites; in most homes today the offering is food, flowers and lamps.

• Before dusk: clean the house and the shrine, and fill the lamps. Many homes light rows of lamps at dusk, as the rest of India does for Diwali.
• At dusk: if your family also keeps Lakshmi Puja that evening, its window is pradosh — see the Lakshmi Puja vidhi and the muhurat guide.
• Through the evening: the family gathers. Many sing Shyama Sangeet, or go to the local pandal.
• In the nishita window: the image or picture is worshipped with lamp, incense, red hibiscus and the bhog the family prepares, led by the priest or the eldest who knows the family’s order.
• After the puja: the fast is broken with the prasad. The lamps are left burning into the night.

Honest questions, honest answers

These are the questions households actually ask about this night.

• Is Kali Puja on the same night as Diwali? In India, yes: both fall on Sunday, 8 November — Lakshmi Puja at dusk, Kali Puja at midnight. On the US West Coast the tithi points to Saturday night for Kali Puja and Sunday evening for Lakshmi Puja.
• Our community hall in California holds Kali Puja on Sunday. Is that wrong? Many diaspora communities keep a festival on the nearest convenient evening, and a community’s choice is its own. The tithi at your midnight points to Saturday this year; ask your priest how your community weighs that.
• Why does our panjika show a different time? A panjika, the Bengali almanac, prints times for its own city, usually Kolkata, and can define the window or the sunrise differently. Our times are for your city, on the definition stated above.
• Is nishita the same as 12:00 am? No. It is the eighth of fifteen equal parts of your night, centred on the midpoint between your sunset and your sunrise. In Kolkata this year it closes before the clock’s midnight; in Singapore and Sydney it opens after it.
• Where do I find my own city if it is not listed? Open the daily panchang for your place on 7 and 8 November and check which tithi is running at the middle of each night, or ask Pandit Ji.

Going deeper

For the whole corridor — the five days, the evening windows and each day’s rite at your city — open the Diwali 2026 city tool or the Diwali 2026 festival guide. For the evening rite on the same night, read the Lakshmi Puja muhurat guide. For Bengal’s other Lakshmi Puja, on the full moon a fortnight earlier, read our Kojagara guide.