🛍️ 4-5-4 Retail Calendar
What retail week is today? Map any date to its NRF 4-5-4 fiscal year, quarter, month and week — or lay out a whole retail year, 53-week years included.
5-week month in the middle of each quarter. All three give 13-week quarters; they differ only in where each quarter's 5-week month sits.
FY2026 · Q2 · July
Retail week 24 of 52 · Saturday
FY2026 runs Sun, Feb 1, 2026 → Sat, Jan 30, 2027 (52 weeks).
Computed on your device from the NRF 4-5-4 rules (year ends the Saturday nearest Jan 31). No lookup tables, no server.
How the 4-5-4 retail calendar works
The 4-5-4 calendar is the National Retail Federation standard that lets retailers compare like-for-like periods: the year is split into four 13-week quarters, each quarter into months of 4, 5 and 4 weeks, so every retail month ends on the same weekday and contains the same number of weekends year over year. This tool computes it from first principles — retail weeks run Sunday–Saturday, the retail year ends on the Saturday nearest 31 January, and quarters map to Feb-Mar-Apr, May-Jun-Jul, Aug-Sep-Oct and Nov-Dec-Jan. No lookup table is shipped; the dates are derived, so it works for any year.
52 weeks is only 364 days, so the calendar drifts a day a year against the Gregorian one. When the 52-week layout would leave four or more days of January uncovered, a 53rd week is added to the final retail month (January), making that year 53 weeks — most recently fiscal 2012, 2017 and 2023. This tool flags those years automatically. Note the 4-5-4 calendar is a planning convention, not a legal fiscal year: many retailers use it, but some adopt 4-4-5 or their own variant, so confirm which your organisation follows.
Frequently asked questions
What is the 4-5-4 retail calendar?
A planning calendar from the National Retail Federation that divides the year into four quarters of 13 weeks, each split into retail months of 4, 5 and 4 weeks. Because every month always ends on a Saturday and holds a fixed number of weekends, sales this March compare cleanly to last March — which a Gregorian calendar, with its shifting weekday and weekend counts, can't guarantee.
When does the retail year start?
The retail year ends on the Saturday nearest to 31 January and begins the following Sunday — so it starts on the Sunday closest to 1 February. Fiscal 2026, for example, runs Sunday 1 February 2026 to Saturday 30 January 2027.
What is a 53-week year?
Fifty-two seven-day weeks is 364 days, one short of a year, so the calendar slips a day annually. Roughly every five to six years — when the 52-week layout would leave four or more days of January uncovered — a 53rd week is added to the last retail month to realign. Recent 53-week years are fiscal 2012, 2017 and 2023; the tool marks them automatically.
Which months are the 5-week months?
In the standard 4-5-4 pattern the middle month of each quarter has five weeks: March, June, September and December. In a 53-week year January (the final retail month) also becomes five weeks, so the fourth quarter reads 4-5-5.
How is 4-5-4 different from 4-4-5?
They shuffle where the 5-week month sits in each quarter. 4-5-4 (the NRF default) puts it in the middle; 4-4-5 puts it at the end. Both give 13-week quarters and 52/53-week years — pick the one your finance team standardised on. This tool computes the NRF 4-5-4 variant.
Is this calculated locally?
Yes — the periods are derived from the 4-5-4 rules in your browser, with no lookup table and no server call. It works offline and for any fiscal year you enter.