Days Until Black Friday (US retail, reference date)

About Black Friday (US retail, reference date)

The day after US Thanksgiving is widely treated as the unofficial start of the US holiday shopping season, with major retail discounting; the exact origin of the name "Black Friday" is debated, with one commonly cited explanation tracing it to Philadelphia police describing the heavy traffic and crowds decades ago, and a later, more retail-friendly reinterpretation linking it to stores turning a profit ("in the black").

Because Thanksgiving itself is a fourth-Thursday-of-November rule rather than a fixed date, Black Friday moves around the calendar in step with it from year to year — the fixed reference date above is a stand-in, and the page separately works out the actual date for the current year.

In recent years a growing number of major US retailers have started discounting well before the day itself, spreading what was once a single-day event across a multi-week promotional period, even though the specific Friday remains the traditionally cited reference point.

Doorbuster deals and early store openings on this day have gradually shifted earlier over the decades, with some large retailers opening on Thanksgiving evening itself in recent years, blurring the line between the two adjacent shopping occasions.