fortnight This fortnight

Which Fortnight Is It?

The current fortnight of the year, the day within it, and when the next one starts.

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Fortnight Calculator Calculator Add or subtract fortnights from any date, with the conversions to weeks, days and hours. Pay Period Dates Pay dates Enter one known pay date and get every fortnightly pay date for that year — including the 27th when it happens. Fortnight Countdown Countdown How many fortnights until a date — a friendlier unit than a long day count.

A fortnight is fourteen days, and fortnight.now is built around that unit. See which fortnight of the year you are in, do the arithmetic on the fortnight calculator, generate fortnightly pay dates for the year, or count down to a date in fortnights. Free, and running in your browser.

Why fourteen days is a better unit than a month

A fortnight is a whole number of weeks, so it always begins and ends on the same weekday. Months do not, which is why anything recurring — pay, rent, sprints, bin collections, one-to-ones — so often runs fortnightly instead. The catch is that 26 fortnights make 364 days, so the cycle never quite fits a year, which is where the occasional 27th pay period comes from.

The vocabulary matters

"Biweekly" is genuinely ambiguous in American English, meaning either every two weeks or twice a week, and it is often confused with semimonthly, which is a different cycle entirely. "Fortnightly" has exactly one meaning, which is a good reason to prefer it in a contract.

From our guides

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Notes Sennight and Other Lost Time Words of English English once had a word for seven nights as well as fourteen. Here is what a sennight was, why it vanished, and the other time words that went with it. 5 min read Questions answered What Is a Fortnight? The Fourteen-Day Unit Explained A fortnight is exactly fourteen days. Here is where the word came from, which countries still use it daily, and what the rest of the world says instead. 5 min read Questions answered 26 Pay Periods vs 27: Why Some Years Get an Extra Pay Date A fortnightly payroll covers only 364 days a year, so the leftover days accumulate until a 27th pay date appears. Here is the arithmetic and what it means. 5 min read Notes Budgeting on a Fortnightly Pay Cycle: A Practical Method Income arrives 26 times a year but bills arrive 12 times. Here is how to convert between the two rhythms, use sinking funds, and stop chasing due dates. 5 min read Questions answered Converting Fortnights to Weeks and Days: Every Conversion One fortnight is two weeks, fourteen days or 336 hours. Here are all the conversions, plus worked examples of adding and subtracting across month ends. 5 min read Notes Is Fortnight British English? Where the Word Is Everyday Speech The word is unremarkable in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and India, and almost unused in America. A guide to who says it and what the rest say. 5 min read Notes Fortnightly Meeting Cadence: Why Two Weeks Works Fourteen days is long enough for real progress and short enough to correct course. Here is why the cadence works, how it drifts, and how to hold it steady. 5 min read Questions answered Fortnightly Rent and Leases: Converting It Properly Doubling a fortnightly figure to get a monthly one understates rent by nearly 8 per cent. Here is the correct conversion, in both directions, with examples. 5 min read

Frequently asked questions

Is fortnight.now free?
Yes — free, no signup, no download.
What is a fortnight?
Exactly fourteen days, or two weeks. The word contracts the Old English for "fourteen nights".
How many fortnights are in a year?
26 complete fortnights make 364 days, leaving one day over in a common year and two in a leap year.
What is the difference between fortnightly and biweekly?
They usually mean the same thing, but "biweekly" is ambiguous in American English and is often confused with semimonthly, which is twice a month rather than every fourteen days.
Why do some years have 27 pay periods?
Because 26 fortnights fall a day or two short of a year. Those leftover days accumulate until an extra pay date lands inside a single calendar year.