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GitHub Actions cron expression: once a year on January 1st
To run a GitHub Actions job once a year on January 1st, use:
0 0 1 1 *At 00:00 UTC, on the 1st of the month, in Jan.
Your week at a glance
Upcoming runs
| # | Local | UTC | From now |
|---|
Copy-ready code
Why use this schedule
Annual rollovers: new-year counters, yearly archives and licence renewals.
- Resetting annual leave balances
- Yearly archive jobs
- Annual compliance reminders
First runs, as an example
Starting from 1 January 2027, evaluated in UTC:
| # | Date and time (UTC) |
|---|---|
| 1 | Fri, 01 Jan 2027, 00:00:00 |
| 2 | Sat, 01 Jan 2028, 00:00:00 |
| 3 | Mon, 01 Jan 2029, 00:00:00 |
| 4 | Tue, 01 Jan 2030, 00:00:00 |
| 5 | Wed, 01 Jan 2031, 00:00:00 |
| 6 | Thu, 01 Jan 2032, 00:00:00 |
Once a year on January 1st in every dialect
| System | Expression |
|---|---|
| GitHub Actions (this page) | 0 0 1 1 * |
| Quartz | 0 0 0 1 1 ? |
| Spring | 0 0 0 1 1 * |
| Crontab | 0 0 1 1 * |
| Kubernetes | 0 0 1 1 * |
| AWS EventBridge | 0 0 1 1 ? * |
| Jenkins | H 0 1 1 * |
| node-cron | 0 0 1 1 * |
| Apache Airflow | 0 0 1 1 * |
| Azure Functions | 0 0 0 1 1 * |
| Google Cloud Scheduler | 0 0 1 1 * |
Need to translate a different expression? Use the cron converter.
Ready-to-use GitHub Actions config
Drop this into your project. The expression is the one above.
on:
schedule:
- cron: "0 0 1 1 *"The GitHub Actions fields, in order: minute (0-59), hour (0-23), day-of-month (1-31), month (1-12), day-of-week (0-6, 0 = Sunday).
Things to watch out for in GitHub Actions
- If both day fields are set, the workflow runs when either matches.
- Scheduled workflows only run on the default branch, and public repos pause them after 60 days without activity.
- GitHub Actions schedules are always UTC. Convert your local time to UTC before writing the expression.
The common mistake with this schedule
In Quartz you can add a year field. Without it the schedule repeats every year, which is usually what you want.
Frequently asked questions
How do I run a GitHub Actions job once a year on January 1st?
Use 0 0 1 1 *. At 00:00 UTC, on the 1st of the month, in Jan.
What is the once a year on January 1st cron expression in other systems?
Quartz: 0 0 0 1 1 ?; Spring: 0 0 0 1 1 *; Crontab: 0 0 1 1 *. The table on this page lists every dialect.
Which time zone does GitHub Actions use for this schedule?
GitHub Actions schedules are always UTC. Convert your local time to UTC before writing the expression.