How Many Days Until Mother's Day?
Mother's Day in the United States is always the second Sunday of May, so the date shifts each year — it can fall anywhere from May 8 to May 14. The live counter below finds the next one and shows exactly how many days you have left to plan brunch, flowers, or a phone call.
When Is Mother's Day and Why the Second Sunday?
Mother's Day follows a weekday rule rather than a fixed date: the second Sunday of May, which always lands between May 8 and May 14. The Sunday placement is original to the holiday — Anna Jarvis held the first observances on a Sunday in 1908 in honor of her mother, who had died on the second Sunday of May three years earlier, and the memorial-service framing made Sunday the natural anchor.
The countdown computes the second Sunday of May for the current year and counts whole days from today to it, midnight to midnight. Once Mother's Day has passed, it targets next year's second Sunday automatically. Note that this is the US date — the UK's Mothering Sunday falls three weeks before Easter, and many other countries use different days entirely.
Anna Jarvis and the Holiday She Came to Regret
The American holiday began with Anna Jarvis's 1908 memorial for her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, a West Virginia community organizer who had run "Mothers' Day Work Clubs" to fight infant mortality. Anna campaigned relentlessly for national recognition, and in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation establishing the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.
The twist is that Jarvis spent the rest of her life fighting the holiday's commercialization. She objected to printed cards as lazy substitutes for handwritten letters and organized boycotts against florists — even though the white carnation, her mother's favorite flower, had become the day's symbol at her own suggestion. The commercial tide won: Mother's Day is now the biggest day of the year for American restaurants and one of the biggest for flower sales.
More Countdowns
- Days until Christmas
- Days until Halloween
- Days until Thanksgiving
- Days until New Year's Day
- Days until Easter
- Days until Valentine's Day
- Days until St. Patrick's Day
- Days until 4th of July
- Days until Mother's Day
- Days until Father's Day
- Days until Summer
Counting toward a date that is not a holiday? Use the date calculator to add or subtract any number of days, or jump straight to a future date with pages like 30 days from today and 90 days from today.
Frequently Asked Questions
In the United States, Mother's Day is always the second Sunday of May, so it falls between May 8 and May 14 depending on the year. The live counter at the top of this page shows the exact date of the next one.
The page finds the second Sunday of May for the current year, then counts whole calendar days from today to that Sunday, midnight to midnight. If this year's Mother's Day has already passed, it counts down to next year's.
No. The second-Sunday-of-May rule is American (and shared by many countries), but the UK celebrates Mothering Sunday three weeks before Easter, much of the Arab world uses March 21, and France uses the last Sunday of May. This countdown follows the US date.