Enkutatash: How Ethiopia Celebrates Its New Year

Ethiopia follows its own calendar — thirteen months, a seven-year gap behind the Gregorian system, and a New Year that arrives every September 11. That day is called Enkutatash, and it is one of the most important celebrations in the Ethiopian year: a national holiday, a religious occasion, and a moment when the landscape itself seems to participate. The highland rains end, the sky clears, and millions of yellow Adey Abeba wildflowers bloom across the hillsides almost exactly on cue.

As a visitor, Enkutatash is one of the most distinctive things Ethiopia can offer. It is visible everywhere during the celebration — in the streets of Addis Ababa, in the villages of Amhara, in the faces of children carrying flowers door to door. It is not a festival staged for tourists. It is simply what happens in Ethiopia every September.

This guide explains what Enkutatash is, when it falls, how it is celebrated across the country, and what a visitor should know before arriving.

Enkutatash is the Ethiopian New Year, marking the first day of the Ethiopian month of Meskerem. The word translates roughly as “gift of jewels” in Amharic — a name rooted in one of Ethiopia’s founding stories. According to tradition, when the Queen of Sheba returned to Ethiopia after her visit to King Solomon in Jerusalem, her subjects welcomed her back with gifts of jewels. The name carries that sense of abundance and homecoming to this day.

The occasion is both a secular and a religious celebration. For Ethiopian Orthodox Christians — around 40% of the population — it falls in the run-up to the feast of the Finding of the True Cross (Meskel, observed on September 27), making September a month of overlapping religious significance. For all Ethiopians, regardless of faith, Enkutatash marks the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the dry, clear months ahead.

Most of the world uses the Gregorian calendar — introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to correct accumulated errors in the older Julian system. Catholic and Protestant nations adopted it quickly. Ethiopia, whose Orthodox Church traces its authority through Alexandria rather than Rome, did not. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church rejected the reform and continued following the ancient Alexandrian calendar, which descended from the Egyptian solar calendar and was later adapted by early Christians.

The result is a calendar that runs seven to eight years behind the Gregorian system, organised into thirteen months: twelve months of thirty days each, plus a thirteenth month — Pagumē — of five days (six in a leap year). The year ends with Pagumē and begins again on Meskerem 1.

The New Year falls in September rather than January for the same reason: the Alexandrian calendar anchors its year to the ancient Egyptian agricultural calendar, which began with the flooding of the Nile in late summer. That agricultural origin — the end of the rains, the beginning of the harvest season — is still visible in how Enkutatash is understood. It is not just a date on a calendar; it is the moment when the landscape changes. The rains stop. The sky clears. The flowers bloom.

The Ethiopian New Year falls on Meskerem 1, which corresponds to September 11 in the Gregorian calendar in most years, and September 12 in Ethiopian leap years (which follow a four-year cycle and do not align exactly with Gregorian leap years).

The date will always fall in the second week of September.

Ethiopia doesn’t choose between its calendar and the rest of the world’s — it uses both, depending on context.

International flights, bank transactions, government paperwork, hotel bookings — all of this runs on the Gregorian calendar. Ethiopia is fully integrated into global systems and there is no practical confusion at those points of contact.

But cultural life, religious observances, holidays, and everyday conversation run on the Ethiopian calendar. When someone says “Meskerem 1,” every Ethiopian knows immediately what that means and when it falls. The two systems exist in parallel, and most Ethiopians move between them without thinking about it — the way someone fluent in two languages switches depending on who they’re talking to.

This is not unusual. Many countries maintain a traditional or religious calendar alongside the Gregorian one — the Islamic Hijri calendar, the Hebrew calendar, the Persian Solar Hijri calendar. What makes Ethiopia’s case distinctive is that the Ethiopian calendar is the official civil calendar, not just a religious one, so it appears on government documents, public holidays and national broadcasting alongside Gregorian dates.

The “seven years behind” framing only makes sense from outside. Inside Ethiopia, the year is simply what it is.

The most immediately striking element of Enkutatash is visual. In the weeks before the New Year, yellow wildflowers called Adey Abeba bloom across the Ethiopian highlands in extraordinary abundance. Children gather them into bouquets and go door to door in their neighbourhoods, singing traditional New Year songs in exchange for small gifts, sweets or coins. The flowers are everywhere: on doorsteps, in churches, in the hands of people walking to celebrations.

For visitors arriving in early September, the carpets of yellow flowers across the hillsides around Addis Ababa and the Amhara highlands are one of the most unexpected natural sights in the country.

The evening before Enkutatash, on the last day of Pagumē, families and communities gather around bonfires called Demera. Wood is stacked and lit after dark; the fire is meant to burn away the old year and its difficulties and welcome the new one. In Addis Ababa, the celebrations in residential neighbourhoods can go through much of the night.

This is distinct from the larger Demera at Meskel (September 27), which involves a ceremonial bonfire in Meskel Square attended by thousands, but the New Year bonfires share the same symbolism: fire as renewal.

Enkutatash itself is a national public holiday. It is a day for family gatherings, church attendance for Orthodox Christians, traditional meals, and visiting neighbours and relatives. Schools are closed and most businesses are shut. Streets that were busy the previous night are quieter in the morning, and the day has a settled, domestic quality — less a spectacle and more a genuine holiday observed in homes across the country.

Enkutatash meals vary by region and family, but certain foods appear consistently:

Injera — the spongy fermented flatbread that is the foundation of Ethiopian cuisine — is made fresh for the occasion, often in larger quantities than usual. It is served with stews: Doro Wat (spiced chicken stew, slow-cooked with hard-boiled eggs and berbere spice blend) is the dish most associated with celebrations. Tibs (fried meat, typically lamb or goat), gored gored (raw beef cubes marinated in butter and spices), and kitfo (minced raw beef with spiced butter and cottage cheese) also appear on festive tables.

Tej — honey wine, amber-coloured and mildly alcoholic — is the traditional drink for celebrations. It is made from fermented honey and the leaves of the gesho plant, which give it a slightly bitter, complex taste.

Enkutatash brings out traditional white Ethiopian dress. The Habesha kemis — a white cotton dress with embroidered borders worn by women — is common throughout the celebrations, particularly in the morning for church attendance. Men wear white gabi or netela shawls. The effect, especially around Orthodox churches in Addis Ababa or in the highlands, is striking — thousands of people in white against the backdrop of bright flowers and blue September skies.

The capital celebrates Enkutatash visibly and at scale. The neighbourhood of Entoto is particularly atmospheric — families walking up to the hilltop churches in white dress against the eucalyptus forest is one of the characteristic images of Ethiopian New Year morning. The Mercato area and Piazza have outdoor celebrations the night before.

Churches such as St. George Cathedral (Giorghis) and Holy Trinity Cathedral (Kidist Selassie) hold services on New Year’s Day that draw large congregations in traditional dress.

In the highlands around Gondar, Lalibela, and Bahir Dar, Enkutatash has a more rural character. The flower season is at its most dramatic here — the rolling hillsides around Lalibela and the Simien escarpment are covered in yellow Adey Abeba. Village celebrations, community bonfires, and children singing door to door feel less urbanised and more connected to the agricultural rhythm the festival originally marked.

Visiting Lalibela at Enkutatash means the rock-hewn churches in the context of Ethiopian New Year services — a combination that is particularly affecting. The priests at Bete Maryam and Bete Giyorgis celebrate the New Year liturgy, and the site, normally well-visited, takes on a different atmosphere when the Ethiopian congregation is present in numbers.

September is the most concentrated period of Ethiopian cultural events. After Enkutatash on September 11, the next major occasion is Meskel on September 27, which celebrates the Finding of the True Cross and involves the largest bonfire ceremony in the Ethiopian Orthodox calendar — a mass event in Meskel Square in Addis Ababa. Visitors planning a September trip can often catch both within a single two-week stay.

October brings the Irreecha festival of the Oromo people at Lake Hora near Bishoftu — a thanksgiving ceremony held at the water’s edge by communities arriving from across Oromia. These three events in sequence make September-to-October one of the most culturally rich windows in the Ethiopian travel calendar.

When to arrive: For Enkutatash itself, plan to be in Ethiopia by September 9 — this gives you the New Year’s Eve bonfire night and the full day of celebration on September 11 or 12. Flights to Addis Ababa are not significantly more expensive during this period; it is not yet the high season.

What to expect on the day: Banks, government offices and most businesses are closed. Restaurants in Addis Ababa and larger towns remain open. Tourist sites — including the Lalibela churches — are accessible, though they will be in use for services. Markets operate, often with more activity than usual.

What to wear: White is associated with the celebration, but there is no expectation that visitors dress in traditional Ethiopian clothing. Respectful, conservative clothing — covered shoulders and knees — is appropriate, especially near churches.

Weather: September in Ethiopia is the final month of the rainy season in the highlands. The rains are tailing off by mid-September, but morning and afternoon showers are still possible, particularly in the highlands and the Omo Valley. Addis Ababa is cooler and greener than the dry months. Pack a light layer for evenings.

Accommodation: Book well ahead if you are travelling to Lalibela, Gondar or Bahir Dar for the New Year period. These towns see higher domestic travel at Enkutatash, and accommodation fills up earlier than usual.

The Enkutatash window — roughly September 8 to 27, ending at Meskel — is one of our favourite times to run northern Ethiopia tours. The landscape is at its most dramatic, the cultural calendar is full, and the crowds that arrive for Genna (Christmas) and Timkat in January are still months away.

We can build an itinerary around Ethiopian New Year in Addis Ababa, in the highlands, or combining both — ending at Meskel Square for the bonfire ceremony on September 27. [Get in touch via WhatsApp to discuss dates →]

[Explore our northern Ethiopia tours →]