Countdown to date, to the second.

A countdown to date shows how much time is left before a day and time you choose: days, hours, minutes and seconds, ticking down live. This one reads the date in your own time zone or in any other, shows a progress bar from a start date, adds totals in weeks, hours, minutes and seconds, keeps up to ten named countdowns, and goes full screen. It opens with the next New Year already set, so you can see it work at once.

How to use the countdown

1. Type a Name if you like, such as Holiday. It shows above the numbers and in the tab's title.
2. Pick the Date and the Time. The time starts at 00:00, the first moment of the day. The quick buttons set a date for you: Tomorrow, In a week, In 30 days, In 100 days or Next New Year.
3. Leave Time zone on your own, or choose the place where the event happens. A live match in London or a launch in Sydney is then counted on that clock.
4. Optional: pick a Start date for the progress bar. The bar fills as time passes between that date and the target.
5. Press Full screen to fill the display with the numbers. Escape leaves it.
6. Press Copy link to send the countdown to someone. Press Add a countdown to keep another one next to it.

What the numbers mean

The big days, hours, minutes and seconds are exact elapsed time. A day here is 24 hours long. The cards below add the same span as weeks and days, and as totals of hours, minutes and seconds.

Take a countdown from 18 October 2026 at noon to 25 December 2026 at 00:00 in UTC, where the clocks never change. That is 67 days and 12 hours. As totals it is 1,620 hours, 97,200 minutes and 5,832,000 seconds, because 67 times 24 plus 12 is 1,620, and 1,620 times 60 is 97,200.

The card named By the calendar is different. It counts dates only, the way a wall calendar would. From the afternoon of 18 October to 25 December it says 68 days, because there are 68 calendar squares to cross, even though the exact time is 67 days and a bit.

Time zones and daylight saving

The date and time you type are a clock reading in the zone you picked. The page turns that reading into one exact moment, using your browser's time zone data, so the countdown is the same for everyone who opens the link. Daylight saving is applied for the date of the event, not for today.

That matters near a clock change. In New York the clocks jump forward at 2 am on Sunday 8 March 2026. A countdown from noon on Saturday 7 March to noon on Sunday 8 March in New York is 23 hours, not 24, because one hour does not exist. If you pick a time that the clock skips, such as 2:30 am that morning, the page tells you and ends the countdown at the same moment, which the clock calls 3:30 am. If you pick a time that happens twice when the clocks go back, it uses the first one.

When the zone is not yours, the line under the numbers also shows the moment in your own time. Use the time zone converter to compare several places at once.

The progress bar

Pick a start date and the bar shows how far along you are. If the start date is 1 September 2026 and the target is 25 December 2026 at 00:00, the whole span is 115 days, and on 18 October the bar sits at 47 of 115 days, about 40.9 percent. With no start date, the bar starts when you made the countdown, which suits a goal that starts now.

Several countdowns, and a link

Add a countdown for each thing you are waiting for. They are kept in this browser, so they are still there tomorrow. The list shows the time left on each. Copy link makes an address with the target in it. Anyone who opens it gets the countdown added to their own list, and the address is cleaned afterwards.

The chime, and what it cannot do

Tick Ring a chime when a countdown ends and a short bell plays in the page at zero. In the last 20 minutes the sound is set up on the browser's own audio clock, so it stays on time in a background tab. Three honest limits apply. The tab must stay open, because a closed tab cannot make a sound. The computer must stay awake. And browsers allow sound only after you click on the page, so click once after you open or reload it. Use Hear the chime to check the volume.

When the date has passed

If the time is already behind you, the numbers show zero and the line under them says how long ago it was. Change the date to start a new countdown, or remove the old one from the list.

For a timer of minutes, such as 25 minutes of work, use the online timer. To count the days between two dates, try days between dates. For a ready set up holiday, see days until Christmas.