About the 4-4-5 Retail Calendar
This 4-4-5 retail calendar tool builds a 52/53-week fiscal year and tells you where any date falls in it — fiscal week number, period (fiscal month), quarter, and the start and end of that week, period and year. Pick a 4-4-5, 4-5-4 or 5-4-4 pattern, the month your fiscal year ends in, the weekday it ends on, and whether the year ends on the last such weekday of the month or the one nearest the month end.
Retailers, restaurants, manufacturers and FP&A teams use these calendars because every period contains whole weeks, so this year’s week 12 always compares cleanly with last year’s week 12 — same number of Saturdays, same number of days. The defaults reproduce the National Retail Federation (NRF) 4-5-4 calendar, which ends on the Saturday nearest January 31.
Because 52 weeks is 364 days, the year end drifts a day earlier each year (two after a leap year) until a 53rd week is added to bring it back. This tool adds that extra week to the final period, which is the most common convention; check your company’s policy if it restates or places the week elsewhere.
How to use the 4-4-5 retail calendar
- 1Enter the date you want to place in the fiscal calendar.
- 2Choose your quarter pattern: 4-4-5, 4-5-4 or 5-4-4.
- 3Set the month the fiscal year ends in and the weekday weeks end on.
- 4Pick whether the year ends on the last such weekday or the nearest one to month end.
- 5Read the fiscal week, period and quarter, then use the table for every period’s dates.
Formula and method
The fiscal year runs from the day after last year’s year-end through this year’s year-end. With the “last” rule the year ends on the final chosen weekday in the year-end month; with the “nearest” rule it ends on whichever of those weekdays is closest to the last day of the month, up to three days into the next month. The year therefore contains exactly 52 or 53 whole weeks.
Weeks are numbered from 1 starting on the first day of the fiscal year. Each quarter is 13 weeks split into three periods by the chosen pattern — 4-4-5, 4-5-4 or 5-4-4 — and in a 53-week year the extra week is appended to period 12. Quarter = ⌈period ÷ 3⌉.
- FY start
- Day after the previous fiscal year-end
- week
- Fiscal week number, 1–53
Worked examples
NRF 4-5-4 calendar: September 29, 2026
Fiscal 2026 on the NRF calendar starts Sunday, February 1, 2026 (the previous year ended Saturday, January 31) and ends Saturday, January 30, 2027. September 29 is day 241 of the fiscal year (240 full days after February 1), and 240 ÷ 7 = 34.3, so it is week 35. Periods 1–7 cover 30 weeks, so week 35 is the last week of period 8 in Q3.
A 53-week year: NRF fiscal 2023
January 31, 2024 was a Wednesday, so the nearest Saturday was February 3, 2024 and fiscal 2023 ran from January 29, 2023 for 53 weeks. February 1, 2024 falls in week 53, which this tool adds to period 12, making that period 5 weeks long.
4-4-5 calendar ending the last Saturday of December
The last Saturday of December 2025 was the 27th, so the fiscal year starts December 28, 2025 and ends December 26, 2026. March 15 is 77 days in, week 12. In a 4-4-5 quarter, periods 1 and 2 cover weeks 1–8, so week 12 sits in the 5-week period 3.
Frequently asked questions
What is a 4-4-5 calendar?+
A 4-4-5 calendar splits each 13-week quarter into periods of 4, 4 and 5 weeks. Because every period is made of whole weeks ending on the same weekday, sales and labor comparisons between periods and years are not distorted by different numbers of weekends.
What is the NRF retail calendar?+
The National Retail Federation publishes a 4-5-4 calendar whose year ends on the Saturday nearest January 31, so the fiscal year usually starts in early February. Many US retailers follow it so their weekly results line up across the industry.
Why do some fiscal years have 53 weeks?+
Fifty-two weeks is 364 days, one or two short of a calendar year. The year-end therefore slips earlier each year until the rule adds a 53rd week, roughly every five or six years, to keep the year anchored to the same part of the calendar.
Should I choose 4-4-5, 4-5-4 or 5-4-4?+
All three have 13-week quarters. 4-4-5 is common in manufacturing and finance, 4-5-4 is the retail standard because it lines up periods with calendar months and holidays, and 5-4-4 is used by a smaller number of companies. Use whatever your company has adopted.
What is the difference between the “last” and “nearest” year-end rules?+
With “last”, the year always ends on the final chosen weekday within the month, so it can end up to six days before month-end. With “nearest”, it ends on the closest such weekday, which can be up to three days into the following month.