Leap Day Birthdays: How People Born on February 29th Celebrate 'Año Bisiesto'

Leap Day, or February 29th, occurs every four years, adding an extra day to the 365-day calendar. These are called 'Leap Years,' as is the case in 2024, meaning that the full year will have 366 days.

While for many this is another irrelevant fact, there are several people who have been born on Leap Day. How will they celebrate their birthdays for the rest of their lives?

Individuals born on Feb. 29 can only blow out the candles that day every four years, but they can choose to do so one day before or after the rest of the years.

So, taking this uncommon event into account, families have created their own traditions, throwing the birthday party on Feb. 28th or on March 1st. It will depend on each household to decide it, unless birthday boys and girls were born in some geographical areas.

Some countries or states might choose to avoid bureaucratic problems by registering the newborn on one of those days. Therefore, parents would need to decide if the child was born closer to the previous or the following day.

In some states of Mexico, Civil Registration offices do not recognize Leap Day, which forces parents to register their children as born either on February 28th or on March 1st on Leap Years ('Año Bisiesto,' in Spanish).

In Spain, also due to legal reasons, the Civil Code establishes that the age of those born on February 29th will be updated on February 28th in non-leap years, as indicated by an article of Spanish outlet El Mundo.

However, in 2024, those born on Leap Day will finally be able to celebrate on February 29th. The Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies, an online club with over 10,000 members, has plenty of party suggestions on its website.

Leap Day: Legal Issues Beyond When to Celebrate Birthdays

Leap years exist because the Gregorian Calendar, which aligns astronomical and chronological dates, needs to include an additional day every four years to account for the fact that Earth's orbit around the sun is approximately 365.256 days. Concretely, our planet needs 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 56 seconds to complete a full orbit.

This might cause some inconveniences for people born on 'Año Bisiesto.' However, not taking this into account also has the potential to disrupt regular legal proceedings and practices. It can also affect months and seasons, which would stop lining up the same way they do every year.