Diwali 2027 falls on Thursday, October 28 in the US, one day before India, which celebrates on Friday, October 29. Amavasya runs from 8:47 PM IST on October 28 to 7:05 PM IST on October 29. In US clock time that is the morning of October 28 to the morning of October 29, so the only US evening with Amavasya during Pradosh Kaal is October 28. Drik Panchang lists the whole five-day festival for US cities as: Dhanteras Tuesday, October 26, Choti Diwali (Naraka Chaturdashi) and Lakshmi Puja Thursday, October 28, Govardhan Puja Friday, October 29, and Bhai Dooj Saturday, October 30.

Lakshmi Puja muhurat on October 28 (Drik Panchang, local daylight time):

  • New York: 6:48 PM to 8:36 PM
  • Boston: 6:32 PM to 8:19 PM
  • Philadelphia: 6:54 PM to 8:43 PM
  • Atlanta: 7:45 PM to 9:26 PM
  • Miami: 7:43 PM to 9:15 PM
  • Chicago: 6:40 PM to 8:27 PM
  • Houston: 7:37 PM to 9:13 PM
  • Minneapolis: 6:54 PM to 8:38 PM
  • Phoenix: 6:36 PM to 8:17 PM
  • Los Angeles: 7:00 PM to 8:41 PM
  • San Francisco: 7:08 PM to 8:55 PM
  • Seattle: 6:42 PM to 8:24 PM

Why you cannot just convert the IST muhurat time

The traditional Lakshmi Puja muhurat is computed for Pradosh Kaal, the period around sunset, for a specific city. Converting an India-based clock time to Eastern or Pacific time does not give you your local Pradosh Kaal, since sunset happens at a completely different local clock hour in each US time zone and city.

Computing your own local muhurat

The list above is Drik Panchang’s muhurat, the Vrishabha (fixed ascendant) window inside Pradosh Kaal. If your city isn’t listed, find its sunset time on October 28 and treat the roughly two-and-a-half-hour window from sunset onward as your local Pradosh Kaal, avoiding Rahu Kaal within that window.

Why time zone alone isn’t precise enough

Two cities in the same US time zone can have meaningfully different sunset times in late October, because time zones are drawn around longitude while sunset also depends on latitude. Minneapolis and Houston are both Central Time, but in late October Minneapolis loses daylight noticeably faster heading into winter, and its sunset lands about half an hour earlier than Houston’s on the same date (6:07 PM against 6:38 PM on October 28, 2027). The same pattern shows up between Seattle and San Diego on Pacific Time, or Boston and Miami if you stretch the comparison across Eastern Time’s whole range. So “Eastern Time sunset” isn’t one number, it’s a range depending on exactly where in that zone your city sits. This is the reason a muhurat time quoted for “the US” in a general article is only a rough guide, and why the per-city lookup matters more here than it would for a country the size of India.

When the family is split across time zones

A lot of households doing Diwali in the US aren’t in just one city, there’s a branch in New Jersey, another in Texas, maybe parents still in India. The common workaround isn’t to pick one “official” time and force everyone onto it. Each household performs its own Lakshmi Puja within its own local Pradosh Kaal, on the correct calendar date for its own location, and families sync up separately, often over a video call for the aarti itself, timed to whichever household’s puja window is most convenient for the group to join together. The ritual accuracy stays intact for each home since each is using its own city’s sunset, and the family connection happens on top of that rather than by forcing a shared clock time.

A daylight saving trap worth double-checking

Diwali 2027 falls on October 28 in the US, ten days before US clocks fall back on Sunday, November 7. That means the puja date itself is unaffected, but it’s close enough to the transition that some listings, calendar apps, or older printed panchangs can mix up which side of the DST change a quoted time falls on, especially if a source was written a year or two in advance and used a generic “sunset around 6 PM” estimate. Before finalizing your evening’s plan, it’s worth confirming the muhurat time you’re working from was actually computed for October 28 itself and not adjusted for a post-DST clock. Business owners doing Chopda Pujan on the same evening run into this too, since a wrong hour thrown off by an assumed clock change can shift the entire ledger-opening ceremony earlier or later than intended.

Checking your city’s timing

Use the muhurat page with your US city selected to see that day’s sunset, Rahu Kaal and Abhijit Muhurat.