Current 4-5-4 Calendar

The 4-5-4 calendar is a guide for retailers that ensures sales comparability between years by dividing the year into months based on a 4 weeks – 5 weeks – 4 weeks format. The layout of the calendar lines up holidays and ensures the same number of Saturdays and Sundays in comparable months. Hence, like days are compared to like days for sales reporting purposes. 

Dividing the retail calendar into 52 weeks of seven days each, or 364 days, leaves an extra day each year to be accounted for. As a result, every five to six years a week is added to the fiscal calendar. This anomaly has most recently occurred in FY12 and FY17 and will occur in FY23.