Fiscal Quarter Calculator

Why fiscal quarters are easy to get wrong

When a fiscal year doesn't start in January, its quarters shift out of sync with the calendar quarters everyone's used to. The US federal government's fiscal year, for instance, runs October through September — so its "Q1" is October, November, and December, months that fall in the tail end of the calendar year, not the start of it. Mixing up calendar-quarter and fiscal-quarter labeling is one of the more common date-related reporting errors in finance and government contracting.

How the fiscal year is numbered

By convention, a fiscal year is usually named after the calendar year in which it ends — so the US federal fiscal year that starts October 2025 and ends September 2026 is "FY2026." This calculator follows that convention.