Use the tool
2026 is not a leap year: it has no 29 February.
Dusk Amethyst · #835F86
The palette entry for 29 February does not depend on the year. The next leap years after 2026 are 2028, 2032, 2036.
Neighbouring dates
Dusk Amethyst
February 29 is Dusk Amethyst, a muted purple with the color word OBSCURE. It sits between the deep plums of late February and the first pinks of March, which is where a leap day falls in the calendar. The name and the reading are authored, like every other entry; the hex is unique across the year, which a test enforces for all 366 dates.
The palette is built as a leap-year calendar on purpose. A 365-entry table would have to either omit February 29 or borrow another date's color, and both are worse than carrying one extra row. The extra row is why the chart says 366 rather than 365, and why the finder accepts February 29 in every year, including common years where the date does not occur.
Why February 29 exists at all
The Gregorian calendar keeps the date roughly aligned with the tropical year with a rule rather than a fraction: a year is a leap year if it is divisible by four, except years divisible by 100, unless they are also divisible by 400. So 2024 and 2028 are leap years, 2100 is not, and 2000 was. February 29 falls on roughly one day in 1,461 - one extra day every four years, minus the century exceptions.
That rule is why a birthday on February 29 is often described as rare. The date is not random: it is a consequence of the calendar's correction, and it has been in the calendar since the Gregorian reform of 1582. The color attached to it here is newer and entirely editorial.
What the leap tool checks
The tool takes a year and answers two questions: does that year contain February 29, and which color does the date carry? It uses the same divisibility rule the calendar uses, including the 100 and 400 exceptions, so 1900 answers no and 2000 answers yes. It also shows the two neighbours - February 28 and March 1 - so a leap-day birthday can see the colors on either side.
The neighbours matter in practice. In a common year, a February 29 birthday is usually celebrated on February 28 or March 1, and those dates have their own colors. Some people use one consistently; others use the leap day's color as the official one and the celebration date's color for the party. Both are reasonable as long as the choice is explicit.
Planning around a date that skips years
Age and legal dates are the part of a leap-day birthday that is not about color: how a jurisdiction counts age for someone born on February 29 varies, so a question about driving, voting or contracts belongs with the authority that sets the rule, not with a color site. The palette can tell you the hex; it cannot tell you the law.
For celebrations, the practical options are the same every leap year: celebrate on the day itself when it exists, and on February 28 or March 1 otherwise. Pick the one you use and say so on the invitation. A guest who sees February 28 on the card and February 29 on the gift tag is not confused by the color; they are confused by the date.
Using the color
Dusk Amethyst is a mid-dark purple, which makes it a good ink or accent and a risky full background for long text. Its complementary partner sits in the yellow-green range, its analogous neighbours are plum and violet, and its tints make soft lilac surfaces. The harmony tool on the palette guide computes all of them from the hex.
Because the date is rare, it is also a good candidate for a personal mark: a small monogram, a bookplate, a single-color print. The color is unusual enough to be recognizable without a name attached, and the hex is stable, so a printer can reproduce it from the value rather than from a screenshot.
Why the finder accepts it every year
The finder asks for a month and a day, not a full date, because the palette is a calendar rather than an appointment book. February 29 is a valid month-and-day pair in the table, so the finder opens it in 2026, 2027 and 2100 alike. Nothing in the page claims that the year has the date; the page is about the date's color, which does not depend on the year.
That is a deliberate simplification. Asking for a year would add a field that changes nothing about the answer, and it would imply the palette varies by year, which it does not. If you need to know whether a specific year has the date, the tool above answers that separately.
The century rule, step by step
Walk the rule with four years. 1600 is divisible by 400, so it is a leap year. 1700, 1800 and 1900 are divisible by 100 but not by 400, so they are not leap years. 2000 is divisible by 400 and was a leap year. 2100 will be divisible by 100 but not by 400, so it will not be. 2400 will be, because 2400 divided by 400 is six.
That pattern is why a 400-year Gregorian cycle contains 97 leap years, not 100. The average year is 365 + 97/400 days, about 365.2425, which is close to the tropical year but not identical. The calendar is a convention that keeps the seasons roughly in place; it is not an astronomical measurement made fresh each year.
The leap tool accepts years 1 through 9999. Near the top of that range the honest answer can be that there is no later leap year inside the range: 9996 is a leap year, and 9997, 9998 and 9999 are not. The tool says so rather than printing an empty list. A year outside 1-9999 is refused and the example is shown, because the rule is defined for the calendar the tool supports and the page will not pretend to know a date beyond it.
Questions
What color is February 29?
Dusk Amethyst, with the color word OBSCURE. It is one of the 366 entries in the palette and has its own day page, which prints its hex value.
Is 2100 a leap year?
No. A century year is a leap year only if it is divisible by 400, so 2000 was a leap year and 2100 will not be.
Does the finder need my birth year?
No. The palette maps a month and a day to a color, and the year is not an input. The leap tool is separate and only answers whether a given year contains February 29.