10 Best Countdown Apps of 2026

Countdown from Find Appiness takes the top spot because its free version does nearly everything a trip or birthday countdown needs. You can create unlimited events, give each an emoji, color and notes, and get a reminder on the big day and the day before. Events repeat daily, weekly, monthly, yearly or on custom schedules, and birthday countdowns show the age someone turns. The app pulls events from your calendars and birthdays from your contacts, syncs over iCloud to iPhone, iPad and Mac, and shows countdowns on Apple Watch and in free Lock Screen widgets. A share link lets friends follow the same countdown. Premium, a one-time $3.99 in the US App Store, removes ads and adds Home Screen list widgets, custom reminders, alarms that ring on silent and Auto Import from your calendar. The listing has 4.8 stars from about 192,000 ratings. The limits are ads in the free tier and no Android app.

Countdown Star has the largest ratings count of any app on this list, 4.8 stars from about 217,000 ratings in the US App Store, and its feature list explains the appeal. You add as many events as you like, count down to future dates or up from past ones, and annual events such as birthdays roll forward to the next year on their own. Each event can use one of more than 15 built-in wallpapers or your own photo, and when a countdown hits zero you can pick confetti, fireworks, balloons, stars or lasers. A slider switches the display between seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years, and each event can sit in its own time zone, which helps for trips abroad. iCloud keeps events in sync across iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, and widgets come in three sizes. The free version shows ads, removable for $1.99. It lacks the calendar import that Countdown by Find Appiness offers.

Time Until is the strongest Android pick here. Its Google Play listing describes a live countdown down to the second, count-ups for days since a milestone, and repeating events on hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly or custom schedules, with reminders and alarms that can fire right at the moment. The feature that sets it apart is the countdown live wallpaper: any event can sit on the home and lock screen, and the wallpaper can move to the next upcoming event as dates pass. Home screen widgets come in several sizes, with photo or moving video backgrounds and custom fonts and colors. You can share a countdown as a photo, an animated clip or a Live Link that opens in any web browser, which helps when relatives are on different phones. The app is free to download and use, but unlimited countdowns, cloud backups, video backgrounds and ad-free use sit behind Premium. We could not confirm a USD Premium price from the listing.

TheDayBefore is built around the D-day habit: you pick one of more than 80 keywords, such as an exam, a couple anniversary, graduation or a fan event, and the app sets the icon, background and notifications for you. It is one of the few apps here on both iPhone and Android, and it handles lunar calendar dates, which matters for lunar birthdays and holidays. Home and lock screen widgets come in several sizes and styles and carry your custom photo, stickers and fonts. Notifications can fire on the day or at D-7, D-3 or D-1, and milestones such as 100 days or one year are set automatically. Stories let you save up to 8 photos for each date, and Recommended events connect you with other people waiting for the same album drop or wedding. The US App Store lists a Basic one-month plan at $1.49 and Remove Ads at $9.99. The social layer is more than many people need for a single trip.

DayCount has the longest feature list on this page. Each counter tracks time before and after a date, can be grouped into custom categories, and can use a photo from your device or an Unsplash search. Repeats cover daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, yearly and custom intervals, and reminders can fire minutes to years before or after an event, with a daily notification summarizing your top five. It also tracks streaks, so a run of workout days can sit beside a vacation countdown. Widgets use filters, fonts, textures and borders on the Home or Lock Screen, and events can be imported from your calendar, given a location with directions, and locked behind Face ID or Touch ID. Sync covers iPhone, iPad and Mac. The listing describes Premium as an annual subscription with a 7-day trial or a lifetime purchase, priced at $9.99 and $29.99 in the US App Store. That makes it one of the pricier options here.

Big Days has been on the App Store for more than 12 years and reports over 2 million downloads. Its recent update added new Home Screen and StandBy widgets, so a countdown can show on a charging iPhone at night. Backgrounds are a strength: besides your camera roll, an in-app Pixabay search finds free high-resolution photos for a beach trip or a concert. Each countdown can use one of dozens of typefaces, with text color, alignment and position adjustable, and you can show days remaining or days since. Custom alerts remind you before the date, a favorite event can open first when you launch the app, and countdowns can be exported for social posts or saved as wallpapers. The US App Store lists a Widget Pack at $2.99 and Big Days Pro at $3.99. It lists no calendar import, iCloud sync or Apple Watch app, and its ratings base of 594 is small.

Days keeps things visual. Each event fills the screen with a photo, and you swipe sideways to move between them, which makes a short list of trips and birthdays quick to browse. It counts down to future events and up from past ones, repeats birthdays and anniversaries yearly, monthly or weekly, and sends reminders about how far away an event is. Lock Screen and Home Screen widgets keep the next date in view, and there is an Apple Watch app. The US App Store lists a Monthly Plan from $0.99, yearly plans from $2.99 and Lifetime Pro at $12.99 or $14.99, so the cheapest entry price on this list belongs to Days. The weakness is clarity: the listing does not say which features the free version leaves out, and the many price points look like different offers for different users. It has 4.8 stars from about 13,000 ratings. There is no iPad or Android version in its listing.

TimeCount, from App Forgeron, is one of the few countdown apps with matching iPhone and Android versions. The free mode lets you create as many countdowns as you like for vacations, birthdays, weddings or retirement, and shows them as full-screen photos you swipe through. Home Screen widgets put the next event in view, events can repeat yearly, monthly, weekly or daily, and reminders tell you how much time remains. The Android listing adds detail: multiple reminders before or after events, custom notes, favorites pinned to the top and a choice of units from years down to minutes. Premium adds grid and carousel layouts, custom alert messages, larger event sizes and an online photo gallery. The US App Store lists Premium at $3.99 a month, $13.99 or $19.99 a year, and $34.99 or $44.99 forever, which is more than most rivals here charge for similar extras. It has 4.6 stars from about 25,000 ratings.

Countdown Buddy, from Taptics, treats the widget as the product. You design a countdown or count-up widget in seconds by choosing one of 11 styles, then change the background color, add a photo from your library or the preset gallery, and pick from fonts chosen to suit each style. Each design is available in small and medium sizes, and you can change it later. Weekend exclusion lets the count skip Saturdays and Sundays, which suits work deadlines as well as trips. The App Store listing suggests birthdays, vacations, back to school, elections and game releases as typical uses. The catch is clear in the listing: the free version includes one countdown widget with the basic design, so most people will buy Countdown +, listed at $3.59 in the US App Store. It does not document the reminders, calendar import or sharing that the top picks offer. It has 4.6 stars from about 26,000 ratings.

Countdown@ is the most basic app on this list, and some people will prefer that. Its App Store listing describes a countdown timer for vacations, birthdays, holidays, parties, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Halloween, with different event types, a widget for your most important events and count-ups from past dates. Its one distinctive feature is a timeline inside every event for diary entries and notes, which is handy for collecting packing lists or plans as a trip gets closer. The app runs on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, and has 4.7 stars from about 41,000 ratings in the US App Store. A Countdown Premium purchase is listed at $4.99, but the description does not say what it unlocks, which makes value hard to judge. With no documented reminders, calendar import or sync, it trails the apps above on features.