How many days until New Year?
This page counts the days, hours, minutes and seconds until 1 January begins in your own time zone, the usual meaning of "days until New Year". It updates every second, needs nothing typed, and as soon as the day has passed it starts counting to next year's 1 January by itself.
Midnight is the moment: New Year around the world
New Year is the one holiday where the countdown ends at an exact instant rather than at the start of a day: the stroke of midnight on 1 January. Because midnight travels around the globe, the year arrives first on Kiritimati (Christmas Island, UTC+14) and in New Zealand, then in Sydney, Tokyo and Seoul, through Europe and the Americas, and last in American Samoa and Niue (UTC−11), 26 hours after the first.
Seoul rings in the year nine hours before London and fourteen before New York; Tokyo and Seoul share UTC+9 and celebrate together. If you follow a broadcast from another city, note that the ball drop in Times Square happens at 14:00 Korean time on 1 January.
Which time zone does the countdown use?
Midnight in the time zone your device reports, so a reader in Seoul and a reader in Lisbon each see the hours to their own midnight, nine hours apart. The target is written under the digits with its zone abbreviation, for example "KST (UTC+09:00)", so you can check it at a glance.
To count to New Year somewhere else, such as a family video call at midnight in another country, make a custom countdown on the countdown page with that zone selected; its share link carries the exact moment, and anyone who opens it sees the same instant converted to their clock.
It stays exact in the background and rings at midnight
The remaining time is recomputed from the clock every time the page draws, so a background tab or a locked phone cannot make it drift; when you come back, the digits are simply right. Over long spans the day count is a true count of 24-hour periods, which is why a daylight-saving change in between can show as 84 days 23 hours rather than 85.
During the last 100 hours the alarm is pre-scheduled on the browser's audio clock and backed by a system timer and a desktop notification, so if the page is open at midnight it rings on time, even in a background tab on a computer. Choose the sound and volume under Alarm; on an iPhone keep the tab in front, because Safari pauses hidden pages.
On the day itself, and the year after
From midnight the page shows a greeting instead of the countdown, with how long ago the day began, and a small line with the days until next year's New Year. Twenty-four hours later it switches back to counting, so a bookmark or a classroom display never needs resetting.
Using the countdown for the evening
Put this page on a TV or projector in full-screen mode (press F) for a party countdown; the digits are readable across a room and the alarm fires exactly at midnight. The last ten seconds are easy to chant along with, since the display rounds up and reaches zero on the stroke, never early.
If your celebration follows another city's midnight, or you want a countdown to a specific party time such as 21:00, make a custom one on the countdown page and share its link with the guests; everyone then sees the same moment regardless of where they open it.
Other countdowns and time tools
The countdown page counts to any date and time you choose, in any time zone, and also counts the days since a past date. For a length of time starting now, such as 10 minutes, use the timer; the stopwatch measures how long something takes. New Year, Christmas, Halloween and Valentine's Day each have a page like this one.