Nothing to type and no button to press - today's half-staff status appears as soon as the page loads.
The status line names the observance when today is one of the five, or else names the next one and how many days away it is. Where an observance falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the table also shows the weekday it is observed on instead - Friday for a Saturday date, Monday for a Sunday one.
Are Flags at Half-Mast Today? (US Federal Status)
Five recurring US federal observances put the flag at half-staff every year: Peace Officers Memorial Day (May 15), Memorial Day (last Monday in May, until noon), Patriot Day (September 11), National POW/MIA Recognition Day (third Friday in September), and Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (December 7). This half-mast checker compares today's date against those five rules in your browser.
Everything computes locally in the browser from durable calendar rules - no upload, no account, and no network request.
The five federal half-staff observances
The full-year table below covers this year and next year, so you can plan ahead around a known, recurring observance - useful for schools, government offices, or veterans' organizations that lower flags on these dates every year.
| Observance | Calendar rule | Half-staff duration | What it honors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peace Officers Memorial Day | May 15 | Full day | Law enforcement officers killed or disabled in the line of duty |
| Memorial Day | Last Monday in May | Until noon local time, then full staff | US military service members who died while serving |
| Patriot Day | September 11 | Full day | Those killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks |
| National POW/MIA Recognition Day | Third Friday in September | Full day | US prisoners of war and those still missing in action |
| Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day | December 7 | Full day | Those killed in the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor |
How the recurring dates are calculated
Two of the five follow an nth-weekday-of-month rule instead of a fixed date - Memorial Day is always the last Monday in May, and National POW/MIA Recognition Day is always the third Friday in September - so this half-mast checker computes the exact date fresh for whichever year it loads in, rather than reading from a hard-coded per-year list.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are flags at half-mast today?
On load this page compares today's date against the five recurring US federal half-staff observances and states whether today is one of them.
Which dates does this cover, and when is the next one?
Peace Officers Memorial Day, Memorial Day (half-staff until noon local time, then full staff), Patriot Day, National POW/MIA Recognition Day and Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. The table on the page lists this year and next year with exact dates, and names the next one and how many days away it is.
Does this track flag orders issued after a death or tragedy?
No. This does NOT track proclamation-driven half-staff orders following a death or tragedy - those are announced case-by-case and cannot be predicted from any fixed rule; the page links the official GSA half-staff notice page for that.
Why are flags at half-mast today?
If today matches one of the five dates this half-mast checker tracks, it is because that date is a recurring US federal observance that returns to half-staff status every year on the same rule, not because of a single news event. Check the disclaimer above for the one case this checker does not cover.
What happens when one of these five dates falls on a weekend?
Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, December 7, is a concrete case of the weekend rule already noted above: in a year where December 7 lands on a Saturday, this half-mast checker's table shows it observed on Friday, December 6 instead of the calendar date.
Does this account for my time zone?
Yes. The status is computed from your device's local calendar day, midnight to midnight in whatever time zone your device is set to, not a fixed reference time zone. If your device's clock or time zone is set incorrectly, the status and the days-away countdown could be off by a day right around midnight.
How long does each recurring observance last?
This half-mast checker tracks five fixed US federal observances, and the table below lists the calendar rule and half-staff duration for each one:
Why can't a specific person's flag order be predicted in advance?
The five recurring dates above are set under the US Flag Code (4 U.S.C. Sec 7) and long-standing annual proclamations, so this half-mast checker can compute the same rule every year without looking anything up. A half-staff order tied to one specific death or tragedy instead comes from an individual proclamation, issued by the President for the national flag or by a state governor for state and local flags - one event at a time, with no calendar rule to compute from in advance.