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Apache Airflow cron expression: on the last Friday of every month at noon
To run a Apache Airflow job on the last Friday of every month at noon, use:
0 12 * * 5At 12:00 UTC, on Fri.
0 12 * * 5 [ "$(date -d '+7 days' +\%m)" != "$(date +\%m)" ] && /path/to/jobYour week at a glance
Upcoming runs
| # | Local | UTC | From now |
|---|
Copy-ready code
Why use this schedule
Month-end releases or reviews that happen on the last Friday. Because months have four or five Fridays, you cannot hard-code a single day number, and each system expresses the rule differently.
- Last-Friday release freezes
- Monthly all-hands reports
- Month-end clean-up days
First runs, as an example
Starting from 1 January 2027, evaluated in UTC:
| # | Date and time (UTC) |
|---|---|
| 1 | Fri, 01 Jan 2027, 12:00:00 |
| 2 | Fri, 08 Jan 2027, 12:00:00 |
| 3 | Fri, 15 Jan 2027, 12:00:00 |
| 4 | Fri, 22 Jan 2027, 12:00:00 |
| 5 | Fri, 29 Jan 2027, 12:00:00 |
| 6 | Fri, 05 Feb 2027, 12:00:00 |
On the last Friday of every month at noon in every dialect
| System | Expression |
|---|---|
| Apache Airflow (this page) | 0 12 * * 5 |
| Quartz | 0 0 12 ? * 6L |
| Spring | 0 0 12 * * 5L |
| Crontab | 0 12 * * 5 |
| Kubernetes | 0 12 * * 5 |
| AWS EventBridge | 0 12 ? * 6L * |
| Jenkins | H 12 * * 5 |
| GitHub Actions | 0 12 * * 5 |
| node-cron | 0 12 * * 5L |
| Azure Functions | 0 0 12 * * 5 |
| Google Cloud Scheduler | 0 12 * * 5 |
Need to translate a different expression? Use the cron converter.
Ready-to-use Apache Airflow config
Drop this into your project. The expression is the one above.
from datetime import datetime
from airflow import DAG
from airflow.operators.empty import EmptyOperator
with DAG(
dag_id="my_dag",
start_date=datetime(2026, 1, 1),
schedule="0 12 * * 5", # schedule_interval= before Airflow 2.4
catchup=False,
):
EmptyOperator(task_id="start")The Apache Airflow fields, in order: minute (0-59), hour (0-23), day-of-month (1-31), month (1-12), day-of-week (0-7, 0 and 7 = Sunday).
Things to watch out for in Apache Airflow
- Weekdays are 0-6 with Sunday as 0, or names such as MON-FRI.
- croniter, which Airflow uses, extends cron with L (last day of month), W and # (nth weekday, such as MON#1). The Airflow docs show 0 0 * * MON#1.
- Airflow defaults to UTC. On a time-zone-aware DAG a cron schedule follows wall-clock time, so a daily 00:00 US/Eastern run moves between 04:00 and 05:00 UTC across daylight saving changes.
The common mistake with this schedule
The L suffix is Quartz and Spring only. Quartz counts Friday as 6, so it is 6L, while Spring counts Friday as 5, so it is 5L.
Frequently asked questions
How do I run a Apache Airflow job on the last Friday of every month at noon?
Use 0 12 * * 5. At 12:00 UTC, on Fri. This dialect has no native rule for it, so the job must also check the date (see the guard command above).
What is the on the last Friday of every month at noon cron expression in other systems?
Quartz: 0 0 12 ? * 6L; Spring: 0 0 12 * * 5L; Crontab: 0 12 * * 5. The table on this page lists every dialect.
Which time zone does Apache Airflow use for this schedule?
Airflow defaults to UTC. On a time-zone-aware DAG a cron schedule follows wall-clock time, so a daily 00:00 US/Eastern run moves between 04:00 and 05:00 UTC across daylight saving changes.