International Day of Charity
The International Day of Charity falls on 5 September every year — a Saturday in 2026. It is a United Nations observance, designated by the General Assembly in 2012 to give charitable, philanthropic and volunteer work one day of shared visibility, and it is held on the anniversary of the death of Mother Teresa.
Key facts
- Date
- 5 September, fixed — a Saturday in 2026
- Designated
- 17 December 2012, UN General Assembly resolution 67/105
- Proposed by
- Hungary, with 44 member states as co-sponsors
- First observed
- 5 September 2013, at UN Headquarters in New York
- Why this date
- Mother Teresa died on 5 September 1997
- Status
- International observance — not a public holiday anywhere
What is the International Day of Charity?
It is a day the United Nations set aside so that charitable, philanthropic and volunteer work has a common platform once a year: one date on which organisations can run appeals, governments can talk about giving, and everyone else can think for a moment about where their own generosity goes. Nothing closes and nobody gets the day off. The whole of it is attention.
The history of the International Day of Charity
The idea started in Hungary, not at the UN. In 2011 a civil society campaign for a national day of charity won the backing of the Hungarian Parliament and Government, and Hungary then took the proposal to the General Assembly. On 17 December 2012 the Assembly adopted resolution 67/105, designating 5 September as the International Day of Charity; 44 member states co-sponsored it.
The first observance came the following September. On 5 September 2013 the Permanent Mission of Hungary to the United Nations marked the day at UN Headquarters in New York, working with the UN Development Programme and the UN Foundation. So both years you will see quoted are right in their own way: the day was created in 2012 and first held in 2013.
Why 5 September?
Because it is the anniversary of the death of Mother Teresa, who died in Calcutta on 5 September 1997. She had founded the Missionaries of Charity there in 1950 and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for work, in the citation’s words, undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress. The Catholic Church canonised her as Saint Teresa of Calcutta in 2016. The UN chose the date to commemorate her; the observance itself is secular and belongs to no faith or organisation.
When is the International Day of Charity?
Always 5 September. The date does not move with the weekday, so it lands on a Saturday in 2026 and a Sunday in 2027 — worth knowing if you are planning anything that depends on an office being open.
International Day of Charity Dates
This year International Day of Charity is celebrated on Saturday, Sep 05, 2026
| Year | Date | Day |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Sep 05 | Saturday |
| 2027 | Sep 05 | Sunday |
| 2028 | Sep 05 | Tuesday |
| 2029 | Sep 05 | Wednesday |
| 2030 | Sep 05 | Thursday |
| 2031 | Sep 05 | Friday |
How to mark the day
Money is the obvious answer and not always the best one. Any of these counts.
Check before you give
Most countries keep a public register of charities with published accounts. Ten minutes on the register tells you more than the appeal ever will, and it is the single most useful thing you can do on this particular day.
Make it regular
A small standing gift is worth more to a charity than a larger one-off, because predictable income is what lets them hire, plan and commit beyond the current campaign.
Give time
Volunteer somewhere that needs the hours — a food bank, a shelter, a helpline, a local group with more work than people. Ask what they actually need rather than turning up with a plan.
Give what you know
Accounts, IT, design, legal, translation: small charities buy these at rates that hurt. Pro bono skills, or a seat on a board of trustees, go further than the equivalent in cash.
Use the matching scheme
If your employer matches donations or offers volunteering days, this is the week to find out. Plenty of schemes go unclaimed simply because nobody asks.
Say who you back, and why
Raising awareness is the stated point of the day. A specific recommendation from someone you trust moves more money than any campaign — so name the cause and say what it does.
Why the day matters
The UN ties the observance to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: charity relieves hunger, exclusion, unsafe housing and the gaps in schooling and healthcare that public provision has not reached, and it does it while the slower work of policy grinds on. That framing is deliberate. Charity is meant to complement functioning public services, not to stand in for them — a day devoted to giving is also a reasonable day to ask why the giving is needed.
The everyday case is simpler. Most people mean to give and never get round to choosing; a fixed date on the calendar is a decent prompt to actually choose.
Common questions
Is the International Day of Charity a public holiday?
No. It is a UN international observance, which means the General Assembly invites member states and organisations to mark it — nothing closes, no leave is granted and no country treats it as a bank holiday.
Who created it, and in which year?
Hungary proposed it after a national campaign in 2011. The UN General Assembly adopted resolution 67/105 on 17 December 2012, and the first observance was held on 5 September 2013. Sources that name only one year usually mean the designation (2012) rather than the first celebration (2013).
Does the date have anything to do with Mother Teresa?
Yes — 5 September is the anniversary of her death in 1997, and the UN chose it in commemoration. The day is not about her order or her religion, though; it covers charitable and volunteer work of every kind.
Is this the same thing as Giving Tuesday?
No. Giving Tuesday is a separate campaign that began in the United States in 2012 and falls after Thanksgiving each November. The International Day of Charity is a UN observance on a fixed date, and neither one is run by the other.
How do I check that a charity is legitimate?
Look it up on your own country’s charity register or tax-exempt list, where registration number, trustees and annual accounts are usually public. Rules differ by country, so a charity registered somewhere else may be perfectly sound and simply absent from your register — in that case read its published accounts directly. Be wary of anything that only ever appears in an advert or a direct message.
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