Persian (Shamsi) Date Converter

How the Solar Hijri calendar works

The calendar counts years from the Hijra of 622 CE, like the Islamic lunar calendar, but its years are solar. Each year begins at Nowruz, on the day of the March equinox, so the calendar never drifts against the seasons. Iran's parliament set its month names and lengths in a law of 31 March 1925 (11 Farvardin 1304). Afghanistan has used the same structure with its own month names.

The start dates move by one day in some years, depending on when the equinox falls and on Gregorian leap years. Use the converter for an exact date.

Nowruz dates

1 Farvardin fell on 20 March 2024 (1403, a leap year with a 30-day Esfand), 21 March 2025 (1404) and 21 March 2026 (1405), and falls on 21 March 2027 (1406) and 20 March 2028 (1407).

Reading dates on Iranian and Afghan documents

A shenasnameh (Iranian birth certificate booklet), a marriage certificate, a national ID card, a school transcript or an Afghan tazkira states dates in the Solar Hijri calendar, usually written year/month/day: ۱۴۰۵/۰۸/۱۴ is 14 Aban 1405, which is 5 November 2026. Persian digits look different from the Arabic digits used in Arab countries: four, five and six are written ۴ ۵ ۶ in Persian and ٤ ٥ ٦ in Arabic. A misread digit is one of the easiest mistakes to make and one of the hardest to spot later, so we check every date in a translation against the converted equivalent.

Older Iranian documents, and religious records, sometimes use the lunar Hijri calendar instead. If a date does not convert to a plausible Gregorian date, it may be lunar: try the Hijri date converter.

Shamsi dates in a certified translation

We translate the date as written, with the month name in Latin letters ("14 Aban 1405"), and add the Gregorian date in square brackets. Names of months are not replaced by Gregorian months, because the months do not line up: Aban runs from 23 October to 21 November.