Home โบ node-cron โบ On the last day of every month
node-cron cron expression: on the last day of every month
To run a node-cron job on the last day of every month, use:
0 0 L * *At 00:00 UTC, on the last day of the month.
Your week at a glance
Upcoming runs
| # | Local | UTC | From now |
|---|
Copy-ready code
Why use this schedule
Month-end closing jobs. Months have different lengths, so you cannot write a single fixed day.
- Month-end financial close
- Final monthly invoice run
- Monthly data snapshots
First runs, as an example
Starting from 1 January 2027, evaluated in UTC:
| # | Date and time (UTC) |
|---|---|
| 1 | Sun, 31 Jan 2027, 00:00:00 |
| 2 | Sun, 28 Feb 2027, 00:00:00 |
| 3 | Wed, 31 Mar 2027, 00:00:00 |
| 4 | Fri, 30 Apr 2027, 00:00:00 |
| 5 | Mon, 31 May 2027, 00:00:00 |
| 6 | Wed, 30 Jun 2027, 00:00:00 |
On the last day of every month in every dialect
| System | Expression |
|---|---|
| node-cron (this page) | 0 0 L * * |
| Quartz | 0 0 0 L * ? |
| Spring | 0 0 0 L * * |
| Crontab | 0 0 28-31 * * |
| Kubernetes | 0 0 28-31 * * |
| AWS EventBridge | 0 0 L * ? * |
| Jenkins | H 0 28-31 * * |
| GitHub Actions | 0 0 28-31 * * |
| Apache Airflow | 0 0 L * * |
| Azure Functions | 0 0 0 28-31 * * |
| Google Cloud Scheduler | 0 0 28-31 * * |
Need to translate a different expression? Use the cron converter.
Ready-to-use node-cron config
Drop this into your project. The expression is the one above.
import cron from 'node-cron';
cron.schedule('0 0 L * *', () => {
console.log('running a task');
}, { timezone: 'UTC' });The node-cron fields, in order: second (0-59), 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 node-cron
- Unlike Unix cron, node-cron requires day-of-month and day-of-week to both match. Leave one of them as * unless you want the intersection.
- The current node-cron documentation lists L, W and # in the day fields; older releases may not have them. Because the day fields are ANDed, the first Monday is also 0 9 1-7 * 1.
- node-cron uses the server time zone unless you pass { timezone: "Asia/Kolkata" }. Its documentation advises timezone: "UTC" for jobs that must not skip or repeat when clocks change.
The common mistake with this schedule
Unix cron has no "last day" symbol. The common 28-31 workaround fires up to four times a month, so the job must check that tomorrow is the 1st.
Frequently asked questions
How do I run a node-cron job on the last day of every month?
Use 0 0 L * *. At 00:00 UTC, on the last day of the month.
What is the on the last day of every month cron expression in other systems?
Quartz: 0 0 0 L * ?; Spring: 0 0 0 L * *; Crontab: 0 0 28-31 * *. The table on this page lists every dialect.
Which time zone does node-cron use for this schedule?
node-cron uses the server time zone unless you pass { timezone: "Asia/Kolkata" }. Its documentation advises timezone: "UTC" for jobs that must not skip or repeat when clocks change.