Programmer’s Day in Ukraine Date in the current year: January 7, 2026

Programming is one of the most in-demand professions in the modern world, so it’s no surprise that many countries have their own Programmer’s Day. In some countries, programmers (especially web programmers) are congratulated on April 4, the feast day of Saint Isidore of Seville, the patron saint of the internet. Another possible date for the holiday is December 10, the birthday of Ada Lovelace, who is widely regarded as the first programmer.

In Russia, Programmer’s Day is celebrated on the 256th day of the year, which falls on September 13 in non-leap years and September 12 in leap years. The number 256 was chosen because it is the maximum number of values that can be encoded with a single byte of information (two to the eighth power). Russian programmers first celebrated their professional holiday on this date in 2002, and it received official status in Russia in 2009.

Ukraine did not have its own Programmer’s Day for a long time, so many Ukrainian programmers celebrated it on September 12 or 13 with Russia. However, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Ukrainian IT community began to reject this date for obvious reasons, making it necessary to establish Ukraine’s own Programmer’s Day.

January 7 was chosen as Ukrainian Programmer’s Day because International Programmer’s Day has been celebrated on this date since 2007. Although this holiday is not particularly well known in the international IT community (its website was last updated in 2016 and was unavailable as of 2025), it definitely exists, as evidenced by its active Facebook page. Therefore, the date was not chosen arbitrarily.

In December 2025, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the presidential decree establishing Programmer’s Day as an official professional holiday, and Ukrainian Programmer’s Day was celebrated for the first time on January 7, 2026. Given that the IT industry is one of the most stable and export-oriented sectors of the Ukrainian economy, it was only a matter of time before Programmer’s Day appeared on Ukraine’s official holiday calendar.

The main purpose of Ukraine’s Programmer’s Day to highlight the significant contributions of programmers and other IT specialists to Ukraine’s digital economy, digital security, and national security and defense capabilities, which is particularly important in times of war. This day is not just a professional holiday for programmers, but also for other IT specialists involved in software development, including product managers, project managers, UX and UI designers, QA specialists, DevOps engineers, and technical writers.