What is the cron expression for every year on jan 1?

The cron expression for every year on jan 1 is "0 0 1 1 *". Runs once a year at 00:00 on January 1st.

What should I watch out for when running a cron job every year on jan 1?

A once-a-year job is a job nobody remembers exists. It will fail silently long after its author left. Run it manually once as a drill, document it, and put a monitor on it — 364 days is a long time to notice nothing happened. Jan 1 at 00:00 is peak load for messaging and email APIs (the whole world sends greetings). If the job sends anything, expect rate limits — or run Jan 2.

Cron expression for Every year on Jan 1

0 0 1 1 *

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

Next 5 runs (your local time)

These are shown in your browser’s timezone. The job itself runs in the scheduler’s timezone — often UTC — so the real run time can differ.

What people actually schedule with `0 0 1 1 *`

Resetting annual sequences — invoice numbers prefixed by year
Rotating yearly archives and closing out the old year’s partitions
Annual compliance jobs: data-retention purges, certificate inventory

Use `0 0 1 1 *` on your platform

It’s the same 5-field expression everywhere — what changes is where you put it and which timezone it runs in.

Linux / crontab

0 0 1 1 * /path/to/your-command

Runs in the server’s local timezone — check it with timedatectl. Full field reference: crontab(5) man page.

GitHub Actions

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 0 1 1 *"

GitHub Actions always runs scheduled jobs in UTC — there is no timezone setting, and runs can be delayed under load (official docs).

Kubernetes CronJob

spec:
  schedule: "0 0 1 1 *"

Defaults to UTC. Set spec.timeZone (Kubernetes 1.27+) for a specific zone — see the CronJob docs.

Quartz / Spring `@Scheduled`

Quartz uses 6 fields (seconds first): 0 0 0 1 1 *. Watch out: Quartz day-of-week is 1=SUN … 7=SAT (not 0–6), and day-of-month / day-of-week use ? — double-check if your schedule touches those fields (Quartz cron reference).

Gotchas with every year on jan 1 schedules

A once-a-year job is a job nobody remembers exists. It will fail silently long after its author left. Run it manually once as a drill, document it, and put a monitor on it — 364 days is a long time to notice nothing happened.
Jan 1 at 00:00 is peak load for messaging and email APIs (the whole world sends greetings). If the job sends anything, expect rate limits — or run Jan 2.

Will you know if this job silently fails?

Cron jobs fail quietly — a server reboots, a path changes, or an error code is ignored — and nobody notices until the data is missing. A cron monitor (a dead-man’s-switch) alerts you when a scheduled job does not check in on time.

Monitor your cron jobs with UptimeRobot →

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Is `0 0 1 1 *` the right schedule?

Finance runs on quarters — every quarter with a year-end branch beats a separate annual job. Fiscal years not starting in January: schedule the 1st of your fiscal month instead.

Or use the interactive cron generator & explainer, read the complete cron syntax guide, or pick another common schedule: