A leap year starting on Sunday is any year with 366 days (i.e. it includes 29 February) that begins on Sunday, 1 January, and ends on Monday, 31 December. Its dominical letters hence are AG. The most recent year of such kind was 2012 and the next one will be 2040 in the Gregorian calendar or, likewise 2024 and 2052 in the obsolete Julian calendar. This is the only leap year with three occurrences of Friday the 13th: those three in this leap year occur three months (13 weeks) apart: in January, April, and July. Common years starting on Thursday share this characteristic, in the months of February, March, and November. Any leap year that starts on Sunday has two Tuesday the 13ths: those two in this leap year occur in March and November. Any leap year that starts on Sunday has two Friday the 17th: those two in this leap year occur in February and August. In this type of year, all dates (except 29 February) fall on their respective weekdays the maximal 58 times in the 400 year Gregorian calendar cycle. Leap years starting on Friday share this characteristic. Additionally, these types of years are the only ones which contain 54 different calendar weeks (2 partial, 52 in full) in areas of the world where Monday is considered the first day of the week.

Calendars

Applicable years

Gregorian Calendar

Leap years that begin on Sunday, along with those starting on Friday, occur most frequently: 15 of the 97 (≈ 15.46%) total leap years in a 400-year cycle of the Gregorian calendar. Thus, their overall occurrence is 3.75% (15 out of 400).

Julian Calendar

Like all leap year types, the one starting with 1 January on a Sunday occurs exactly once in a 28-year cycle in the Julian calendar, i.e., in 3.57% of years. As the Julian calendar repeats after 28 years, it will also repeat after 700 years, i.e., 25 cycles. The formula gives the year's position in the cycle ((year + 8) mod 28) + 1).

Holidays

International

Roman Catholic Solemnities

Australia and New Zealand

British Isles

Canada

United States