Ganesh Chaturthi 2026: Date, Sthapana Muhurat, Vidhi & Visarjan

When Is Ganesh Chaturthi 2026?

Ganesh Chaturthi 2026 falls on Monday, 14 September. It is observed on the Chaturthi of Bhadrapada Shukla Paksha, kept as the birth anniversary of Lord Ganesh, and it opens the ten day Ganeshotsav that closes with visarjan on Anant Chaturdashi.

The festival is also called Vinayaka Chaturthi and Ganesh Chauth. Whatever the household calls it, the shape of the day is the same: the murti is brought home, the sthapana is done in the midday window, and Lord Ganesh is treated as a guest in the house for as many days as the family has undertaken to keep him.

Ganesh Chaturthi 2026 Date, Tithi and Muhurat

The tithi turns at the same moment everywhere, but the puja window is worked out against your local midday, so it shifts from city to city. The timings above follow the Panchang for New Delhi. For Gujarat, the published Ahmedabad window is 11:21 AM to 01:49 PM, about nineteen minutes later. Mumbai is 11:20 AM to 01:48 PM and Pune 11:16 AM to 01:44 PM.

Our Choghadiya timings cover the auspicious windows across the day, and the guide on choosing a shubh muhurat explains how these windows are arrived at.

Why Ganesh Chaturthi Falls on 14 September in 2026

The Chaturthi Tithi runs from 07:06 AM on 14 September to 07:44 AM on 15 September, which places part of it on each of two dates. Families comparing calendars reasonably ask why the 14th carries the festival when Chaturthi is still running on the morning of the 15th.

The answer is in when the puja is performed. Ganpati sthapana belongs to the madhyahna period, not to the early morning. On 14 September the tithi begins at 07:06 AM and is running right through midday, so the whole sthapana window sits inside it. On 15 September the tithi has ended at 07:44 AM, hours before midday arrives. Only one of the two dates can carry the sthapana, and that is the 14th.

This is also why the usual udaya tithi rule, which assigns an observance to the day whose sunrise the tithi covers, is not what decides this one. The tithi is read as it actually runs across the midday puja window instead. The same reasoning governs several other observances, including the Gujarat date for Nag Panchami and the way a Satyanarayan Vrat date can sit a day apart from a festival sharing the same tithi.

Ganpati Sthapana Muhurat and Why It Is at Midday

Hindu time-keeping divides the span between sunrise and sunset into five equal parts: pratahkala, sangava, madhyahna, aparahna and sayankal. Madhyahna is the middle of those five, and it is the part of the day in which Lord Ganesh is held to have been born. That is the whole reason the sthapana muhurat sits where it does.

Two practical points follow from it.

The first is that an early morning sthapana, which feels natural to families used to starting a puja at sunrise, is the wrong window for this one. The murti can be brought home earlier in the day, but the installation and the main puja wait for madhyahna.

The second is that the window is genuinely local. Madhyahna is calculated from your own sunrise and sunset, which is why the published windows for Ahmedabad and Kolkata are more than an hour apart. Use a Panchang set to your city, or ask your pandit to confirm the window before the day.

The detailed midday puja itself is the Shodashopachara Ganapati Puja, the sixteen step form of worship. Households that keep a simpler vidhi still perform the sthapana inside the same window.

Ganesh Chaturthi Puja Vidhi

The sthapana can be performed at home. A pandit is usually called where a family is installing a murti for the first time, where the full Shodashopachara puja with sankalp and havan is wanted, or where the utsav is being kept at a business premises or by a mandal.

Steps for the sthapana on Ganesh Chaturthi

1. Bathe and wear clean clothes in the morning, and complete the cleaning and decoration of the puja space well before the madhyahna window opens.
2. Prepare the chowki with a clean red or yellow cloth, and place a small heap of rice or a plate of grain where the murti will sit.
3. Bring the murti in with the family, facing east or north where the room allows, keeping the face uncovered from the moment the sthapana begins.
4. Take the sankalp, stating your name and gotra, the puja being undertaken, and the number of days the murti will be kept. This last part is not a formality, since it is what fixes your visarjan day.
5. Perform the pranapratishtha, invoking the presence of Lord Ganesh in the murti with the prescribed mantras.
6. Offer the shodashopachara: asan, padya, arghya, snana, vastra, yajnopavit, gandha, akshat, pushpa, dhoop, deep, naivedya, tambul, dakshina, pradakshina and namaskar, in that order.
7. Offer durva in bunches, traditionally twenty one, along with red flowers, modak and laddu.
8. Light the deep and dhoop, and recite the Ganesh Atharvashirsha or the names of Lord Ganesh according to your family practice.
9. Perform the aarti, and distribute the prasad to everyone present.
10. Keep the deep lit and the naivedya renewed for as long as the murti remains in the house.

Where a havan is included, it follows the main puja, and the purnahuti is offered before the aarti.

Ganesh Chaturthi Puja Samagri

Keep the samagri ready the previous evening. The madhyahna window is only about two and a half hours long, and it is not a good time to be sending someone to the market.

For the sthapana

• Ganesh murti, and a chowki with a clean red or yellow cloth
• Rice or grain for the seat, and a kalash with water, a coconut and mango leaves
• Haldi, kumkum, akshat, chandan and abir
• Durva grass, red flowers such as jaswand, and a garland
• Panchamrit, made of milk, curd, ghee, honey and sugar
• Modak, laddu, fruit and the naivedya prepared for the day
• Deep, ghee or oil, wicks, dhoop, camphor and a matchbox
• Supari, paan leaves, janeu, moli and dakshina
• Samagri for the havan where one is being performed

For the days that follow

• Fresh durva and flowers each morning
• Naivedya for both the times the puja is offered
• Oil or ghee for the deep, and dhoop
• Aarti book or printed aarti for the household to sing together

Your pandit may add items specific to your family tradition or to the sankalp being taken, so confirm the list a few days before.

The Daily Routine During Ganeshotsav

The part first-time households most often get wrong is not the sthapana, it is the days after it. Once the pranapratishtha is done, Lord Ganesh is present in the house as a guest, and the household observes the ordinary courtesies of hosting one.

In practice that means the puja and aarti are offered twice a day, in the morning and in the evening, with fresh naivedya at both. The deep is kept lit. Durva and flowers are changed daily rather than left from the previous day. The murti is not left alone in a locked house, so families keeping a longer utsav usually plan around it.

Many households read the Ganesh Atharvashirsha daily, and the evening aarti is the point at which neighbours and relatives are invited in. Where the family keeps a stricter observance, onion and garlic are set aside for the duration.

None of this needs to be elaborate. A simple twice daily aarti kept faithfully for five days is closer to the practice than an ambitious routine abandoned on day three.

Ganesh Visarjan 2026: Choosing Your Day

Visarjan does not have to wait for the tenth day. One and a half, three, five, seven and ten days are all traditional, and the choice follows what the family has kept rather than any scale of merit. What matters is that the number is stated in the sankalp at sthapana, so it is decided before the puja rather than partway through the week.

On the visarjan day the household performs the usual puja and aarti, offers the final naivedya, and takes the uttar puja, which formally releases the invocation made at the pranapratishtha. Families ask forgiveness for anything lacking in the observance, and the murti is then carried out for immersion.

Anant Chaturdashi itself falls on Friday, 25 September 2026, and the day carries its own observance, the Anant Vrat, alongside the visarjan. The tithi timings, the puja window and the vrat vidhi are covered in the guide to Anant Chaturdashi 2026.

Why Ganeshotsav Runs a Day Longer in 2026

Sthapana is on 14 September and visarjan on 25 September, which keeps the murti in the house for eleven nights. In most years it is ten. In 2025 the sthapana was on 27 August and the visarjan on 6 September, and in 2027 it falls on 4 September with visarjan on 14 September. Both of those are ten nights.

The extra night is not an error in anyone’s calendar. The utsav is measured in tithis, not in dates. It runs from Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturthi to Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturdashi, a span of ten tithis, and that span is what “ten days” has always referred to.

A tithi is not a calendar day, though. It is the time the moon takes to gain twelve degrees on the sun, and because the moon’s speed varies, a tithi can run anywhere from about nineteen hours to about twenty six. When the tithis of a particular fortnight run long, as they do this year, the same ten tithis stretch across one more English date than usual.

The practical consequence is small but worth knowing before you book leave or arrange the visarjan transport. Counting from 14 September, the eleventh date is 24 September, and the murti leaves the house on the 25th.

Not Sighting the Moon on Ganesh Chaturthi

The one prohibition attached to this day is on seeing the moon. Tradition holds that sighting the moon on Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturthi brings Mithya Dosha, sometimes called Mithya Kalank, which is a false accusation of having stolen something.

The vrat katha behind it concerns Lord Krishna. He was accused of stealing the Syamantaka Mani, a precious jewel, and the accusation stood against him publicly. Sage Narada told him that he had come under Mithya Dosha because he had seen Chandra on this tithi, Chandra himself having been cursed by Lord Ganesh that whoever sighted him on the Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturthi would be tainted by false blame. On Narada’s advice, Lord Krishna kept the Ganesh Chaturthi vrat and was cleared.

In 2026 the period to avoid moon sighting on 14 September runs from 09:06 AM to 08:04 PM, a stretch of about eleven hours. Because the rule follows the tithi rather than the date, the caution can extend across two evenings in some years, so check your own Panchang rather than assuming a single night.

If you do see the moon by accident, the same katha supplies the remedy. Chant the Syamantaka mantra:

सिंहः प्रसेनमवधीत्सिंहो जाम्बवता हतः। सुकुमारक मारोदीस्तव ह्येष स्यमन्तकः॥

Simhah Prasenamavadhitsimho Jambavata Hatah, Sukumaraka Marodistava Hyesha Syamantakah.

An accidental sighting is not treated as something beyond repair, and it is not a reason to abandon the puja.

Ganesh Chaturthi in Gujarat and Surat

Gujarat keeps Ganeshotsav on a large scale, and in Surat the ten days reshape whole neighbourhoods, with mandals installing murtis in the pols and societies and processions building towards the visarjan. Alongside the public utsav, a great many families keep a private sthapana at home for a day and a half or for five days.

Two points are worth planning around locally.

The sthapana window is the Gujarat one, not the Delhi one. The published Ahmedabad muhurat for 2026 is 11:21 AM to 01:49 PM, and Surat sits close to that. Confirm the exact window for your own location before the day.

Immersion arrangements have changed over the past several years. Clay murtis and natural colours have become common, and municipal artificial ponds are now the usual route for household immersion rather than the river itself. Check the arrangements announced for your ward closer to the date, and if you are keeping a clay murti, a visarjan in a drum of water at home is an accepted practice for small murtis.

For households that install Ganpati at a shop or an office, the sthapana is often combined with a business puja, which uses the same midday window.

One more scheduling note for 2026. Hartalika Teej also falls on 14 September, and Rishi Panchami follows on the 15th, so the sthapana, the Teej vrat and the Rishi Panchami puja land within two days of each other. Households keeping more than one of these should plan the samagri for all of them together.

Booking a Pandit for Ganpati Sthapana

Where a family is installing a murti for the first time, or wants the pranapratishtha and the full Shodashopachara puja performed properly with sankalp and havan, a pandit is called for the sthapana. Pandit Ramkishan Joshi performs Ganesh Chaturthi sthapana and puja at homes, shops and society pandals in Surat and the surrounding areas, and can confirm the madhyahna window for your own location.

The madhyahna window on 14 September is narrow, and every sthapana in the city needs the same two and a half hours. Festival dates are usually taken about a month in advance for that reason, so ask as early as you can. Closer to the day the midday window is often already committed. To fix a time, get in touch with your location and the number of days you intend to keep the murti, and the samagri list will be shared in advance.