What is Halloween?
Halloween is the evening before All Hallows' Day (All Saints' Day) on 1 November: its name is a shortened form of “All Hallows' Eve”. Many of its customs are often traced to Samhain, the Gaelic festival that marked the end of the harvest and the start of winter, a time when people believed the boundary between the living and the dead grew thin.
Irish and Scottish immigrants carried these customs to North America in the 19th century, where they mixed with harvest-time parties. Today Halloween is above all a community night: streets decorate, families dress up together, and children collect sweets from door to door.
When is Halloween? Dates for 2026 and 2027
2026
- Saturday 31 October 2026Halloween
2027
- Sunday 31 October 2027Halloween
Halloween is always on 31 October, whatever the day of the week. Trick-or-treating happens on the evening itself in most places, although some towns set their own hours for it.
How people celebrate
- Carving jack-o'-lanterns. In Ireland and Scotland people once carved faces into turnips; in North America the bigger, easier pumpkin took over.
- Trick-or-treating: children in costume go from door to door calling “trick or treat!” and are given sweets.
- Costume parties, haunted houses, apple bobbing and ghost stories told in the dark.
Good to know
- Going trick-or-treating with young children? Pick a bright or reflective costume and carry a torch: it gets dark early at the end of October.
- A lit pumpkin by the door is a traditional sign that a house welcomes trick-or-treaters.
- The next day is All Saints' Day, and in Mexico the Day of the Dead begins: a very different celebration, about remembering loved ones.