When is Mardi Gras 2025? Get ready for a much longer Carnival season next year

Kasey Bubnash
·2 min read

If this year’s Carnival season feels a little too short, get ready for an extension in 2025. Mardi Gras next year falls on March 4, about two weeks before St. Patrick’s Day.

With 12th Night on Jan. 6 marking the start of Carnival, that means the 2025 season will last 58 days, compared to this year’s 38-day season.

Crowds lined up along the GCCA parade route on Fat Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020 in Biloxi.
Crowds lined up along the GCCA parade route on Fat Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020 in Biloxi.

Why isn’t Mardi Gras on the same day?

Mardi Gras falls on a different date each year, a system that revolves around Easter, which also doesn’t occur on the same day every year. Buckle up, because this calculation involves math, astronomy and religion.

Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or after the day of the vernal equinox, March 21.

That means Easter can never occur before March 22 or later than April 25.

Crowds lined up on downtown Biloxi restaurant balconies on Fat Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020.
Crowds lined up on downtown Biloxi restaurant balconies on Fat Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020.

What’s an ecclesiastical full moon?

The Astronomical Applications Department of the U.S. Naval Observatory explains that “the full moon involved is not the astronomical full moon but an ecclesiastical moon (determined from Catholic Church tables) that keeps, more or less, in step with the astronomical full moon.”

People reach for beads and trinkets during the Krewe of Rex parade on Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015.
People reach for beads and trinkets during the Krewe of Rex parade on Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015.

So what do moons have to do with Mardi Gras?

Mardi Gras is set 47 days before Easter, and it falls on a Tuesday between Feb. 3 and March 9. These two dates are extra special, because Mardi Gras will fall on them only once in a lifetime, each occurring roughly once every 100 to 150 years. Read more here.

Mardi Gras is also the day before Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, which the Catholic Church and some Protestant churches observe leading up to Easter as a time of repentance, marked by fasting, abstinence, prayer and almsgiving.

A large Mardi Gras mask in the corner at the Gulf Coast Carnival Association float den in Biloxi on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024. The GCCA parade rolls at 1 p.m. on Feb. 13, Fat Tuesday.
A large Mardi Gras mask in the corner at the Gulf Coast Carnival Association float den in Biloxi on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024. The GCCA parade rolls at 1 p.m. on Feb. 13, Fat Tuesday.

Here’s the Mardi Gras schedule for the next several years:

  • 2026: Feb. 17

  • 2027: Feb. 9

  • 2028: Feb. 29

  • 2029: Feb. 13

If you want to be a few years ahead — or even decades ahead — on your Mardi Gras and Easter plans, here is a list of Easter dates through 2299, courtesy of the Astronomical Society of South Australia.