The beaver moon is November’s full moon. In 2026 it is full on Tuesday 24 November 2026 at 2:53pm GMT.
Where the name comes from
Royal Museums Greenwich: Some say it comes from Native Americans setting beaver traps during this month, while others say the name comes from the heavy activity of beavers building their winter dams.
Their guide to the full moon names is where that wording comes from, read on 10 September 2026.
Beaver Moon is a name for a month, then, not for a kind of moon.
What there is to see
November is the point where UK full moons are properly high again and the nights are long, which is the best combination of the year for simply looking at one. The weather is the only argument against it.
For our money November is the easiest full moon of the year to catch in Britain: high in the sky and up for the better part of fourteen hours. The cost is weather, and November is the cloudiest month in much of the country. When it does clear, the Moon passes nearly overhead and is bright enough to cast a sharp shadow.
What people get wrong about it
That there is one settled origin. Royal Museums Greenwich gives two and picks neither, and other sources add more. This is normal for these names: they are folk tradition collected late and tidied up afterwards, so a site stating one origin flatly is usually being more confident than the evidence.
Beaver Moon dates
- 2026: Tuesday 24 November 2026 at 2:53pm (GMT)
- 2027: Sunday 14 November 2027 at 3:26am (GMT)
Times London local, from NASA. The 2027 row carries one source, not two. How these dates were checked.
Where this sits in the year
The beaver moon is the twelfth of the 13 full moons in 2026. The one before it is the Hunter's Moon on Monday 26 October 2026, and the one after is the Cold Moon on Thursday 24 December 2026.
Full moon number 12 of 13 sits in the calendar with every date and London time. For what the Moon is doing on the nights either side of Tuesday 24 November 2026 — waxing gibbous before, waning gibbous after — there is the eight phases of the Moon.
Why the date moves every year
The beaver moon falls on Tuesday 24 November 2026 in 2026 and Sunday 14 November 2027 in 2027 — 355 days apart rather than 365. Twelve lunar cycles fall about eleven days short of the calendar year, which is why November’s moon keeps sliding earlier; run that far enough and a thirteenth moon has to be squeezed in, as 2026 does in May.
Our bias, stated: we sell moon and lunar wall art. None of it is a beaver moon as such, because there is nothing to draw — the beaver moon looks like every other full moon. What can be got wrong is the drawing itself, and beaver moon or no beaver moon, how to tell an accurate moon phase print is the checklist for that.
Written by Craig Fearn, Aphelion Prints. Last updated .
