Vikram Samvat: What It Is and When the New Year Begins

Open a Hindi calendar, a wedding invitation, a temple notice or an old land record and the year printed on it is not the one on your phone. It is larger by 56 or 57, and it is written “Samvat” or “संवत्”: for example Vikram Samvat 2083 for most of 2026. This guide explains what that number is, why the gap is sometimes 56 and sometimes 57, when the Samvat year actually changes, and how to convert in either direction. The conversions below come from the same function that runs our Vikram Samvat converter. What the function deliberately does not know is the exact day the year changes, and the last section explains why only a panchang can tell you that.

What Vikram Samvat is

Vikram Samvat (विक्रम संवत्, often shortened to VS or “Samvat”) is the era used by the traditional Hindu calendar across most of North, West and Central India, and in Nepal, where it is the official calendar. The count is traditionally attributed to King Vikramaditya of Ujjain and begins 57 years before the Common Era, which is why a Samvat year is about 57 ahead of the Gregorian (“English” or AD/CE) year.

Two features make it different from the English calendar:

• It is lunisolar. Months follow the moon: each month runs from one new moon (or full moon, in the southern convention) to the next, and is divided into a bright half (Shukla Paksha) and a dark half (Krishna Paksha) of roughly fifteen tithis (lunar days) each. Twelve lunar months are about eleven days shorter than a solar year, so every two to three years an extra month, the adhik maas, is inserted to keep the festivals aligned with the seasons.
• Its year does not start on 1 January. In the convention followed in most of North India the year begins on Chaitra Shukla Pratipada, the first day of the bright half of the month of Chaitra, which falls somewhere between mid-March and mid-April of the English calendar. Gujarat and some neighbouring regions start their Samvat year on Kartik Shukla Pratipada, the day after Diwali, in October or November. The year number is the same; only the day it ticks over differs.

The months, in the northern order, are Chaitra, Vaishakha, Jyeshtha, Ashadha, Shravana, Bhadrapada, Ashwin, Kartik, Margashirsha (Agahan), Pausha, Magha and Phalguna.

Why the difference is 57 for most of the year and 56 for the rest

Because the Samvat year begins in March or April, one English year overlaps two Samvat years:

• From 1 January up to the day before Chaitra Shukla Pratipada, the Samvat year is still the old one: VS = AD + 56. In January 2026 the Samvat year was 2082.
• From Chaitra Shukla Pratipada to 31 December, the new Samvat year runs: VS = AD + 57. In November 2026 it is 2083.

So ”2026 is Samvat 2083” is right for about nine months of the year and wrong for the first two and a half. Our converter asks for the month for exactly this reason:

January and February are always the old year; May to December are always the new one. March and April are the ambiguous months: for a date in March or April you must know whether Chaitra Shukla Pratipada has passed, and that date moves every year because the calendar is lunar.

Quick conversion table

For a date after the Samvat new year (roughly mid-April onwards) the rule is simply AD + 57. The Shaka Samvat column is the Indian national calendar, discussed below:

From Samvat to English. A Samvat year spans two English years, so the honest answer is a pair: Vikram Samvat 2083 runs from the spring of 2026 to the spring of 2027 (VS − 57 to VS − 56). If a document says “Samvat 2083, month Kartik”, the English year is 2026, because Kartik falls in October–November, after the new year; if it says “Samvat 2083, month Magha”, it is 2027, because Magha falls in January–February.

How to convert by hand

1. AD to Samvat. Add 57. If the date is in January or February, add 56 instead. If it is in March or April, check whether Chaitra Shukla Pratipada has already occurred that year: before it, add 56; on or after it, add 57.
2. Samvat to AD. Subtract 57 to get the year in which the Samvat year starts; it ends in the following English year. Use the month name on the document to decide which of the two applies: Chaitra to Pausha fall in the first English year, Magha and Phalguna (and the tail of Pausha) in the second.
3. A date, not just a year. Converting a tithi such as “Kartik Shukla Panchami, Samvat 2083” to an English date requires the panchang for that year, because tithis do not map to fixed English dates.

Shaka Samvat, the national calendar

India’s official civil calendar, adopted by the Government of India in 1957 and printed alongside the Gregorian date in the Gazette and on All India Radio, uses the Shaka era, which is 78 years behind the English year for most of the year and 79 behind from 1 January until its new year on 1 Chaitra (around 22 March, or 21 March in leap years). November 2026 is Shaka 1948. Vikram and Shaka differ by 135 years. Our converter shows the Shaka year as well, so you can read a Gazette date without a second lookup.

Where you will meet Samvat dates

• Panchangs and festival calendars: every tithi is given with its Samvat year and month.
• Wedding cards and invitations: often both dates, the English one for the venue and the Samvat one for the muhurat.
• Land records, old deeds and temple inscriptions: in many states older revenue records carry Samvat dates, and converting them matters for establishing the age of a document or a claim.
• Horoscopes (janam kundli): the birth tithi, month and Samvat year are the inputs an astrologer works from.
• Nepal: official documents, newspapers and government deadlines use Vikram Samvat (Bikram Sambat), with a slightly different month structure that starts the year in Baisakh (mid-April).

Why you still need a panchang

Our converter knows the year, and in ten months of the twelve it knows it with certainty. What no formula can tell you is the exact English date of Chaitra Shukla Pratipada in a given year, because it depends on the moment of the new moon, the local sunrise and the rules of the particular panchang tradition. Different panchangs occasionally disagree by a day. The same applies to every tithi and to whether a year has an adhik maas. So:

• For the year number, use the converter.
• For the day the year changes, for any festival date, or for a legal or religious document where the tithi matters, read a printed or official panchang for that year. Do not rely on a remembered date from a previous year; it shifts by about eleven days a year and jumps back after an adhik maas.

Common mistakes

• Adding 57 to a January or February date. It should be 56. A February 2026 document is Samvat 2082, not 2083.
• Treating a Samvat year as one English year. It is two: “Samvat 2083” alone could mean 2026 or 2027. Look at the month.
• Confusing Vikram and Shaka. Both appear on Indian documents. Shaka is the smaller number (AD − 78); Vikram the larger (AD + 57).
• Assuming the Gujarati and North Indian Samvat years change on the same day. Same number, different new-year day.
• Taking a festival date from last year’s calendar. Lunar dates move; use this year’s panchang.

The rule our converter uses

Vikram Samvat = AD + 57   (Chaitra Shukla Pratipada to 31 December)
Vikram Samvat = AD + 56   (1 January to the day before Chaitra Shukla Pratipada)
Samvat year VS starts in AD = VS − 57 and ends in AD = VS − 56
Shaka Samvat  = AD − 78   (after ~22 March), AD − 79 before

Try any year or month in the Vikram Samvat converter; it flags March and April as “check a panchang” rather than guessing.

Frequently asked questions

Which Vikram Samvat year is 2026? Samvat 2083 from Chaitra Shukla Pratipada (March/April 2026) onwards; Samvat 2082 before that.

When does the Vikram Samvat new year begin? On Chaitra Shukla Pratipada in most of North India, between mid-March and mid-April; the exact date is in that year’s panchang. In Gujarat the year begins the day after Diwali.

Is Vikram Samvat the same as the Hindu calendar? Vikram Samvat is the era (the year count) used by the traditional Hindu calendar in most of India and Nepal. The months, tithis and festivals are the Hindu calendar; the Samvat number says which year it is.

Why is the difference not always 57? Because the Samvat year starts in spring, the first part of each English year still belongs to the previous Samvat year, when the gap is 56.

What is Shaka Samvat? The era of India’s official national calendar, 78 years behind the English year, used in the Gazette of India and on official broadcasts.