Ethiopia’s calendar has 13 months and runs years behind

3 min read

Most of the world uses the Gregorian calendar, but Ethiopia keeps its own. The Ethiopian year has 13 months, begins in September and is numbered about seven to eight years behind the Gregorian count. As a result, Ethiopians celebrated the start of their year 2000 in September 2007, while much of the world was already well into the new millennium.

Twelve long months and one short one

The structure of the Ethiopian year is simple. There are twelve months of exactly 30 days each, which adds up to 360 days. These are followed by a thirteenth month called Pagume, which has five days in a normal year and six days in a leap year. Together they make 365 or 366 days, the same length of year used almost everywhere else.

Leap years come every four years without exception, following the same rule as the old Julian calendar. The Gregorian calendar, by contrast, skips leap years in most century years. Ethiopia’s calendar is closely related to the Coptic calendar used by the Coptic Church in Egypt and also shares features with the Julian system, although it is not identical to either.

Why Ethiopia is years behind

The gap of seven to eight years has nothing to do with the length of the year. It comes from a different calculation of the year in which Jesus was born. The Gregorian calendar counts its years from one estimate of that date, while the Ethiopian tradition, rooted in the ancient Coptic calendar, uses another. Ethiopia also never switched to the Gregorian reform introduced in Europe in 1582, so its older system remained in everyday use.

Because the Ethiopian year starts in September, the difference is about eight years for the first part of the Gregorian year, from January until the Ethiopian New Year, and about seven years for the rest. That is why the gap is usually described as seven or eight years rather than a single figure. For example, the Ethiopian year 2018 only began in September 2025.

New Year in September

The Ethiopian New Year is called Enkutatash. It falls on 11 September in the Gregorian calendar, or on 12 September in some years because of the way leap days line up between the two systems. The holiday comes at the end of the long rainy season and is treated as a time of renewal and rebirth, a fresh start that matches the greener landscape after the rains.

A millennium seven years late

The difference in counting produced a memorable moment in 2007. Ethiopia entered the year 2000, and with it the start of its third millennium, on 12 September 2007 in the Gregorian calendar. That was seven years after most of the world had marked the arrival of the year 2000. The country held large celebrations for the occasion, although some Ethiopians questioned the cost of the festivities.

The episode showed how firmly the country has held on to its own way of counting time. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church in particular keeps its feasts by the traditional calendar, and the system remains in everyday use across the country. Visitors can be surprised to find that the year on a local calendar does not match the one on their phone, but for Ethiopians the 13-month year is simply the normal way of marking time.