Why is Dhanteras on that day and not the day before or after?

Because the rule is not about which day the tithi starts. It is about which day the tithi covers pradosha. Where two days both carry it, the day covering more of that window takes it.

Is the pradosha window the same everywhere in India?

No. It is defined by that city's own sunrise and sunset, so it shifts by up to about forty minutes across the country. The table on this page gives it for eighteen cities.

Dhanteras 2026

Name: Dhanteras 2026
Start: 2026-11-06
Location: India

Dhanteras 2026 falls on Friday, 6 November 2026. The day is Kartika Krishna Trayodashi (amanta Ashwina Krishna), and the tithi is tested at pradosha — the three muhurtas after sunset.

The date, and how it was decided

Dhanteras 2026 falls on Friday, 6 November 2026.

The day is Kartika Krishna Trayodashi (amanta Ashwina Krishna). The tithi alone does not fix the date: a tithi rarely fills a civil day, so a festival names the period its tithi has to be running in. For Dhanteras that period is pradosha, the three muhurtas after sunset. This is the window the puja is kept in.

Pradosha in your city

This is the window the puja is kept in. It is set by the Sun at your own horizon, so it is not the same time across the country — the spread below is about forty minutes end to end.

City	Pradosha
Bengaluru	5:51 pm – 8:15 pm
Chennai	5:40 pm – 8:04 pm
Hyderabad	5:42 pm – 8:06 pm
Mysuru	5:56 pm – 8:20 pm
Coimbatore	5:56 pm – 8:20 pm
Delhi	5:32 pm – 7:56 pm
Mumbai	6:03 pm – 8:27 pm
Varanasi	5:14 pm – 7:38 pm
Lucknow	5:20 pm – 7:44 pm
Jaipur	5:40 pm – 8:04 pm
Madurai	5:53 pm – 8:17 pm
Trichy	5:49 pm – 8:13 pm
Kochi	6:00 pm – 8:24 pm
Thiruvananthapuram	5:59 pm – 8:23 pm
Kozhikode	6:01 pm – 8:25 pm
Hubballi	5:58 pm – 8:22 pm
Vijayawada	5:35 pm – 7:59 pm
Visakhapatnam	5:23 pm – 7:47 pm

This is the whole of pradosha, computed as the three muhurtas after sunset at that city's own sunrise and sunset. Almanacs often also print a narrower muhurat inside it, chosen for a fixed sign rising rather than for the tithi; if you have seen a shorter window elsewhere, that is what it was, and it sits inside this one.

Other dates in 2026

Sharad Navratri · Vijayadashami · Diwali

How a tithi is computed · Why the day starts at sunrise

How this date was decided
The tithi is computed from the Swiss Ephemeris on the Lahiri ayanamsha. The day is the one whose pradosha the tithi covers most. The date is checked against the published almanacs before it is printed here.