There is no single correct visarjan day, and the question is asked far more often than it needs to be. The observance a family keeps is almost always inherited — you do what your household has always done, and that is the whole of the answer.
For anyone setting up their own home for the first time, or where the custom has been lost, here is what the options actually mean.
The common choices
- Dedd din (1½ days) — immersion on the evening of the second day. The most common household observance by some distance.
- Teen din (3 days) — three days of morning and evening aarti.
- Panch din (5 days) — often kept by families who also observe Rishi Panchami.
- Saat din (7 days) — a full week.
- Daha din (10 days) — the long observance, kept by many families and by smaller mandals.
- Anant Chaturdashi — the final day, when the large public mandals immerse.
The dates in 2026
Counting Ganesh Chaturthi on 14 September as day one, the 1½-day immersion falls on 15 September, three days on 16 September, five on 18 September, seven on 20 September and ten on 23 September. Anant Chaturdashi is 25 September.
What matters more than the day
Whichever day you keep, the shape is the same: the idol is installed with pranapratishtha at the start, receives aarti morning and evening while it is in the house, and is sent off with a final aarti and naivedya before immersion.
One practical point that does get overlooked — if you are immersing in a municipal tank rather than a river or the sea, check where your nearest one is before the day rather than on it. Cities reposition them each year.