Chhath Puja 2026 runs November 13-16: Nahay Khay, Kharna, Sandhya Arghya (evening offering to the setting sun, November 15), and Usha Arghya (morning offering to the rising sun, November 16). For Bihari and Purvanchali families in the UK, the dates match India’s, but the arghya times are tied to your own local sunrise and sunset.
Why this is entirely about your local sun times
Arghya is offered at the moment of sunset (Sandhya Arghya, November 15) and sunrise (Usha Arghya, November 16). These are, by definition, local astronomical events; an India-published clock time for Patna or Delhi has no direct bearing on when the sun sets or rises in your UK city.
The 36-hour fast in between
Vratins observe a roughly 36-hour nirjala fast from Kharna’s evening through Usha Arghya the next morning, so knowing your local sunset on the 15th and sunrise on the 16th in advance helps plan the fast’s timing precisely. UK sunsets in mid-November are notably early, often before 4:30 PM.
Where UK families actually perform the ritual
Chhath traditionally needs a riverbank or a large body of water to stand in while offering arghya. In the UK, that usually means a canal, a reservoir, or a stretch of the Thames, Trent, or Soar, depending on where the local Bihari and Purvanchali community has settled. Leicester, Southall, and parts of East London have organized community Chhath events for years now, often coordinated through a local temple or a Bihari/UP cultural association, with volunteers arranging safe, shallow access points and sometimes portable pools when no suitable natural water is nearby.
If you’re new to an area and don’t know of an organized event, it’s worth checking with the nearest Hindu or Purvanchali cultural association a few weeks ahead rather than scouting a canal bank yourself on November 15. Access, safety, and permission to use a public waterway are all things the organized events have already sorted out, and standing in unfamiliar water at dusk in mid-November isn’t something to improvise.
Cold water in November is the real logistical problem
This is the detail that catches first-timers off guard: UK water temperature in mid-November is genuinely cold, often 8-11°C in a canal or reservoir, compared to a Bihar riverbank where the water is still comfortable in November. Vratins (those observing the fast) traditionally stand in the water for the arghya, sometimes for an extended period around the actual sunset or sunrise moment.
Families who’ve done this for a few years in the UK tend to prepare accordingly: warm, dry clothes and a hot drink ready the instant the arghya is offered, a thermos rather than assuming you’ll go home first, and increasingly, some vratins wear a wetsuit layer under their puja clothes for the water portion specifically because of how sharp the cold is compared to what the ritual originally assumed. None of this changes the ritual itself, it’s just what experienced UK-based families have learned to plan around that a Patna-based guide won’t mention.
Prasad prep on a UK timeline
Thekua, the wheat-flour and jaggery prasad central to Chhath, needs ingredients that aren’t always sitting in a regular UK supermarket. Jaggery (gur) and the right coarse wheat flour are usually a trip to a South Asian grocer, and with Nahay Khay starting the fast sequence on the 13th, most families do that shopping run the weekend before rather than the week of, since a Leicester or Southall Asian grocery can run short on jaggery in the days right before a major Chhath community event when demand spikes locally.
Getting your city’s exact times
Use the panchang page with your UK city selected to see the exact sunset for November 15 and sunrise for November 16.