Julian Date Calendar 2027 and 2026: Free Printable Day-of-Year Charts, Date Codes and Julian Day Numbers

A Julian date calendar numbers every day of the year from 001 to 365, so Jan. 1 is 001, Feb. 1 is 032 and Dec. 31 is 365. Both 2026 and 2027 have 365 days, so the numbers line up the same way in each year. Below are four free printable templates for each year, followed by how to read the codes printed on egg cartons, warehouse labels and military paperwork, and how the astronomers’ Julian Day differs.

Two things called a Julian date

The same name is used for two different numbers, and mixing them up is the most common mistake.

	Day-of-year “Julian date”	Astronomical Julian Day
What it counts	Days since Jan. 1 of the current year	Days since noon UT on Jan. 1, 4713 BC
Jan. 1, 2027	001 (code 27001)	2461407
Dec. 31, 2027	365 (code 27365)	2461771
Who uses it	Food packers, warehouses, the military, programmers	Astronomers and scientific software
Day starts at	Midnight	Noon Universal Time (UT)

Strictly speaking, only the second is a Julian date. The day-of-year number is an ordinal date, which the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) writes in its ISO 8601 standard as YYYY-DDD (2027-032). Outside astronomy, though, “Julian date” almost always means the day of the year, and that is what most people searching for a Julian calendar need.

How to read a day-of-year Julian date

Find the month, then the date. If you have no chart, add the date to the number of days before that month:

Month	Days before it (2026 and 2027)	Days before it (leap year 2028)
January	0	0
February	31	31
March	59	60
April	90	91
May	120	121
June	151	152
July	181	182
August	212	213
September	243	244
October	273	274
November	304	305
December	334	335

Example: Oct. 18 is 273 + 18 = 291. Running the other way, 185 falls in July, because 185 is more than 181 but not more than 212; 185 − 181 = 4, so it is July 4.

Key dates in 2027 and 2026

Date	Day of year	YYDDD	YDDD	Julian Day (12:00 UT)
Fri., Jan. 1, 2027	001	27001	7001	2461407
Sun., Feb. 28, 2027	059	27059	7059	2461465
Mon., March 1, 2027	060	27060	7060	2461466
Sun., July 4, 2027	185	27185	7185	2461591
Thu., Nov. 25, 2027 (Thanksgiving)	329	27329	7329	2461735
Fri., Dec. 31, 2027	365	27365	7365	2461771
Sun., Oct. 18, 2026 (today)	291	26291	6291	2461332
Thu., Nov. 26, 2026 (Thanksgiving)	330	26330	6330	2461371
Thu., Dec. 31, 2026	365	26365	6365	2461406

Where you will see these codes

Egg cartons. Cartons carrying the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) grade shield show a three-digit pack date: the day of the year the eggs were washed, graded and packed. The USDA Agricultural Marketing Service gives 001 for Jan. 1, 049 for Feb. 18 and 198 for July 17. A sell-by date, when printed, cannot be more than 30 days after that pack date, according to USDA.

Lot and batch codes. Manufacturers often print YYDDD or YYYYDDD on packaging, so 27032 or 2027032 both mean Feb. 1, 2027. Our date code lookup lists every one for the year.

Military paperwork. U.S. military supply requisitions use a four-digit YDDD date inside the document number: one digit for the year and three for the day. In that format, described in the Defense Logistics Agency’s standards, 7032 is Feb. 1, 2027. Because the year is a single digit, the same code repeats every 10 years.

Software and data. Spreadsheets and programming languages call it the day of year, often with the ISO 8601 form 2027-032.

The astronomical Julian Day

In 1583 the scholar Joseph Scaliger proposed the Julian Period, a 7,980-year cycle that combines three older calendar cycles of 28, 19 and 15 years. Day 0 of the count starts at noon Universal Time on Jan. 1, 4713 BC in the proleptic Julian calendar. Astronomers adopted it because a single running number makes it easy to measure the time between observations, no matter which calendar or month length applies.

Each Julian Day begins at noon UT, not midnight. The U.S. Naval Observatory notes that 00:00 UT corresponds to a fraction of .5, so the night of Jan. 1, 2027 starts at JD 2461406.5 and noon that day is JD 2461407.0. Scientists often use the Modified Julian Date (MJD) instead, defined as MJD = JD − 2400000.5, which starts at midnight. Jan. 1, 2027 is MJD 61406.

Another useful check: noon on Jan. 1, 2000, a standard reference point known as J2000, is Julian Day 2451545.

Which template to print

• Day-of-Year Chart: one page, all 365 numbers at a glance. Good for a wall, a desk or a warehouse station.
• Monthly Julian Calendar: twelve pages for planning, with the day of year and the number of days left on every date.
• YYDDD Date Code Lookup: two pages for anyone reading lot codes, pack dates or military document numbers.
• Astronomical Julian Day Chart: one landscape page for astronomy clubs, classrooms and anyone logging observations.

All four are designed by Fresh Calendars for 2027 and 2026, use the same holiday engine as our printable calendars, and print on US Letter paper. Choose “Actual size” or “Fit to page” in your printer settings.

Leap years change the count after February

In a leap year, Feb. 29 becomes day 060 and every later date moves up by one, ending at 366 on Dec. 31. Neither 2026 nor 2027 is a leap year. The next is 2028, then 2032. If you keep one of these charts on the wall, replace it when the year changes, because Jan. 1 always restarts the count at 001.