Valentine's Day falls on February 14. The date stays the same every year, so only the day of the week changes.
Year
Date
Days away
2027
112 days
2028
477 days
2029
843 days
2030
1,208 days
2031
1,573 days
Valentine’s Day and the Presidents’ Day weekend
Washington’s Birthday, the federal holiday most people call Presidents’ Day, is the third Monday of February. That Monday always lands between February 15 and February 21, from 1 to 7 days after Valentine’s Day.
The two meet whenever February 14 is a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. A Friday Valentine’s Day opens the three-day weekend, and a Saturday or Sunday one falls inside it. Valentine’s Day 2027 is a Sunday.
When Valentine’s Day falls on Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday comes 46 days before Easter, according to the Book of Common Prayer’s table of movable feasts. February 14 plus 46 days is April 1, or March 31 when the year has a February 29. Valentine’s Day is Ash Wednesday whenever Easter falls on the matching date.
That happened in 2018 and 2024. It happens next in 2029, for the last time this century. The Easter countdown shows how the Easter date is worked out.
Why is Valentine’s Day on February 14?
February 14 is the feast day tied to St. Valentine, and Smithsonian Magazine reports that there was more than one: at least two martyrs of that name were executed under the Roman emperor Claudius Gothicus, around A.D. 269 to 270. The romance came more than a thousand years later. The earliest link between the day and love is usually traced to Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem “Parlement of Foules,” which ties St. Valentine’s Day to birds choosing their mates.
February 14 never moves; its weekday steps forward by one each year, and by two in the year after a leap year. For an anniversary or a date night, count the days until that date; after February 14, the next seasonal clock is the countdown to spring.
Frequently asked questions
Who sold the first American valentine cards?
Esther Howland of Worcester, Massachusetts, is credited by the Library of Congress as the first to sell English-style, hand-decorated valentines in America, starting in 1850.