Converting Nepali (BS) dates to English (AD)
Converting between Nepali (Bikram Sambat) and English (Gregorian) dates trips people up because the gap between the two is not a single fixed number. It shifts through the year, and BS month lengths change year to year, so a mental shortcut will usually be a day or a month off.
A BS to AD conversion turns a Bikram Sambat date into its Gregorian equivalent, and the reverse turns an AD date into BS. The reliable way to do it is to look the date up on a dated calendar rather than to calculate it by hand. The Nepali calendar shows every BS date with its AD equivalent, and the English calendar does the same the other way around.
Why the gap is not fixed
Bikram Sambat is about 56.7 years ahead of the Gregorian calendar. That fraction is the whole problem for mental maths: because the BS year starts in mid-April rather than on 1 January, any given Gregorian year overlaps two BS years. For dates from January to mid-April the year difference is 56; from mid-April to December it becomes 57. On top of that, BS months do not have fixed lengths, so the day-of-month rarely maps to a tidy round number.
Converting BS to AD
- Open the Nepali calendar and navigate to the BS month you need.
- Find the BS day. Its Gregorian (AD) equivalent is shown in the same cell.
- Read off the AD day, month and year — that is your converted date.
Converting AD to BS
- Open the English calendar and go to the AD month.
- Find the AD day and read the BS equivalent shown alongside it.
- Note that a single AD month usually spans two BS months, so check the BS month label as well as the day.
Common reasons to convert dates
- Filling official forms. Nepali documents record dates of birth and issue in BS; foreign and online forms usually want AD.
- Working out an exact age. Once you have both dates you can find the precise gap — see how age is worked out in our age calculation guide.
- Planning around festivals. Festival dates are set in BS, so converting to AD helps you plan travel and leave.
Frequently asked questions
Can I just add 56 or 57 years to convert?
Only roughly, and only for the year. The exact offset depends on whether the date falls before or after the mid-April new year, and the day and month still need to be aligned — so a calendar lookup is the accurate method.
Why does one English month cover two Nepali months?
Because the two calendars start their months on different days. A Gregorian month typically begins partway through one BS month and ends in the next, so both BS month names appear within it.
What is the date range I can convert?
The Nepali calendar covers the range published in official patros, which spans well over a century of BS years, so it comfortably handles birthdays, historical dates and future planning.
Convert a date now
Use the Nepali calendar to turn a BS date into AD, or the English calendar to go from AD to BS. For the background on how the two calendars are built, read the Nepali calendar explained.
