World AIDS Day 2026: Tuesday, Dec. 1, and What We Know About This Year's Theme

World AIDS Day is held on Dec. 1, a Tuesday in 2026, and the 2026 theme has not yet been announced. The federal human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) information site HIV.gov says the day is held on “December 1” and that “the first World AIDS Day took place in 1988.” As of Nov. 3, 2026, neither the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) nor the World Health Organization (WHO) had announced a theme for this year.

World AIDS Day 2026 date and theme status

Dec. 1 is 28 days after Nov. 3. UNAIDS announced last year’s theme on Nov. 25, 2025, and its 2024 theme on Nov. 26, 2024. Those are past dates, not a schedule for 2026, so we will list the 2026 theme only once UNAIDS or WHO posts it.

Year	Date	Theme (UNAIDS)
2024	Dec. 1	“Take the rights path”
2025	Dec. 1	“Overcoming disruption, transforming the AIDS response”
2026	Tuesday, Dec. 1	Not yet announced
2027	Wednesday, Dec. 1	Not yet announced

The 2025 and 2024 themes come from UNAIDS pages for each year. The weekdays for 2026 and 2027 are computed from the calendar.

What the latest HIV numbers say

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published its 2024 national data on May 18, 2026, and HIV.gov repeated it on May 27, 2026. WHO’s fact sheet is dated July 27, 2026.

The figures below come from two agencies and cover different years, so they should not be compared line by line.

Measure	WHO, end of 2025 (global)	CDC, 2024 (United States)
People living with HIV	An estimated 41.0 million	More than 1.2 million Americans (estimated)
New infections or diagnoses	An estimated 1.2 million people acquired HIV in 2025	Nearly 39,000 diagnoses in 2024
Deaths	An estimated 570,000 people died from HIV-related causes in 2025	Not reported here

WHO adds that 64% of the people living with HIV at the end of 2025 are in the WHO African Region.

Did the U.S. government mark World AIDS Day last year?

In 2025, Northern Public Radio and Democracy Now reported that the U.S. government did not commemorate World AIDS Day, for the first time since 1988. Northern Public Radio reported that State Department employees “have reportedly been told that they should not publicly commemorate the day or spend government money on events around the day.” Whether the government will mark the day in 2026 has not been announced.

How to get a free HIV self-test

Together TakeMeHome says its program “mails free HIV self-tests” and that “you can order two self-tests every 90 days.” Check the program’s About page for its current terms before you order. We have not confirmed any free testing events on Dec. 1.

Where the red ribbon comes from

UNAIDS says that “in 1991, some of the Visual AIDS artists came together to design a visual symbol.” The page is titled “Wear your red ribbon this World AIDS Day.”

World AIDS Day 2026 checklist

The printable checklist on this page lists the date, a self-test order, the red ribbon and a reminder to recheck the theme in late November. Mark Dec. 1 on the December 2026 printable calendar, and see the November 2026 printable calendar for the weeks before. The same Tuesday is GivingTuesday, and our December 2026 important dates story lists the rest of the month.