Cheat Sheets · Cron Cheat Sheet · Cron Yearly on January 1st — Crontab Example

Cron Yearly on January 1st — Crontab Example

0 0 1 1 *

Runs once a year on January 1st at 00:00 (midnight).

Field by field

Field	Value	Meaning
`Minute`	`0`	At minute 0
`Hour`	`0`	At midnight (00:00)
`Day of month`	`1`	1st day
`Month`	`1`	January only
`Day of week`	`*`	Any day of the week

Annual tasks like archival partitions, copyright year updates, and yearly summary generation execute on January 1st at midnight. The shorthands @yearly and @annually represent this exact expression.

0 0 1 1 * /usr/local/bin/annual-archive.sh

Related schedules

0 0 1 1,4,7,10 * Quarterly schedule 0 0 1 * * Monthly on the 1st 0 0 * * * Daily at midnight

FAQ

Are @yearly and @annually identical?
Yes, both shorthands expand to 0 0 1 1 *.

What if the server is offline at Jan 1 00:00?
The job will not run until the next year unless you use anacron or an internal catch-up check.

How do I run on December 31 at 23:59 instead?
Write 59 23 31 12 *.

Stop memorizing — build it interactively

Try this schedule in the Cron Editor

Full reference: Cron Cheat Sheet