When is Columbus Day?

Columbus Day is observed on the second Monday in October every year. Specific dates in this period include October 12, 2026; October 11, 2027; October 9, 2028; and October 8, 2029. The second-Monday rule was set by the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, Public Law 90-363, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on June 28, 1968 and effective January 1, 1971. The Act consolidated four federal holidays onto fixed Mondays.

Before the change, Columbus Day was observed on October 12, the calendar anniversary of Christopher Columbus's first landfall in the Bahamas in 1492, but using the modern Gregorian calendar; under the Julian calendar in use at the time of the voyage, the landfall date was October 12, 1492 as recorded in the ship's log of the Santa Maria. The first nationally proclaimed Columbus Day was October 12, 1892, by President Benjamin Harrison, marking the 400th anniversary of the voyage and tied to a wider Columbian celebration that also produced the Pledge of Allegiance and the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.

Colorado made it an official state holiday in 1907 (the first state to do so), and lobbying by the Knights of Columbus and Italian American organizations led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proclaim Columbus Day a federal holiday on April 30, 1934, with statutory authority enacted by Congress in 1937 (Public Resolution No. 21, 50 Stat. 71, codified at 36 U.S.C. section 107). The holiday became a fixed Monday observance in 1971 under the Uniform Monday Holiday Act and is codified at 5 U.S.C. section 6103.

The date is contested in modern public life. Many states and cities now observe Indigenous Peoples' Day on the same date instead of, or in addition to, Columbus Day, recognizing the Native peoples who lived in the Americas before European contact and the catastrophic effects of colonization (estimates of Native population loss after 1492 due to disease and violence range from 50 to 90 percent over the following century). South Dakota replaced Columbus Day with Native Americans' Day in 1990; Berkeley, California adopted Indigenous Peoples' Day in 1992; and as of 2026 more than 20 states and over 130 municipalities have adopted Indigenous Peoples' Day, alone or alongside Columbus Day. President Joe Biden issued a separate Indigenous Peoples' Day proclamation alongside the Columbus Day proclamation beginning in 2021. Federal law has not yet been changed; the holiday remains officially Columbus Day at the federal level.