World Cancer Day is an international awareness day held every year on 4 February to raise awareness about cancer and to encourage its prevention, early detection and treatment. World Cancer Day is spearheaded by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), the largest and oldest international cancer membership organisation dedicated to reducing the burden of cancer. 

World Cancer Day happens every year on 4 February. In 2025, World Cancer Day will take place on a Tuesday. 

World Cancer Day was established by the Paris Charter adopted at the World Summit Against Cancer for the New Millenium in Paris on 4 February 2000. This Charter is aimed at the promotion of research for treating as well as preventing cancer, improving services provided to patients, raising awareness among the general public, and mobilising the global community against cancer. 

In article 10, the Charter established that 4 February would therefore be World Cancer Day, so that the objectives of the Paris Charter would remain in the hearts and minds of people around the world. 

Read the Charter  

World Cancer Day is coordinated by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) who in turn is a registered charity in Geneva, Switzerland. 

The official colours of World Cancer Day are blue and orange. 

The World Cancer Day campaign 2025-27 “United by Unique” explores different dimensions of people-centred cancer care and new ways of making a difference. It will offer a three- year journey from raising awareness to taking action. 

Cancer is more than just a medical diagnosis—it’s a deeply personal matter. Behind every diagnosis lies a unique human story - stories of grief, pain, healing, resilience, love and more.  

That’s why a people-centred approach to cancer care that fully integrates each individual’s unique needs, with compassion and empathy, leads to the best health outcomes.  

The "United by Unique" campaign will begin its journey by inviting individuals from all walks of life to share their personal cancer stories. Much like people-centred care aims to see the individual behind the disease, the campaign intends to showcase real stories with unique perspectives. 

Every experience with cancer is unique and it will take all of us, united, to create a world where we look beyond the disease and see the person before the patient. A world where the needs of people and communities are at the centre of health systems. 

Read more about the campaign

Read more about the people centred care approach

Anyone and everyone. 

From all walks of life, all ages and from all around the word. We’re counting on everyone’s support: individuals, organisations, corporates, schools, cities, governments, hospitals and communities – especially you - because every action counts. 

Share your story and motivate others to share theirs. 

Help us get as many people as possible to talk, hear, read and learn about cancer by spreading the messages of World Cancer Day to your family, friends, colleagues, community, media and governments.   

The Action toolkit is a good starting point for ideas and examples of how to mark World Cancer Day. You might also find some inspiration from what others are doing by browsing the Map of Activities. 

Find out more

We are always looking for supporters. One of the best ways to support World Cancer Day is getting involved with your own activity - refer to the Action toolkit to find out how. Another way is to support an existing activity. You may want to check our Map of Activities for events happening in your area and to find out how you can get involved.  

If you don’t see any activities near you, we recommend you contact your local cancer organisation. 

Take a look at the UICC member organisations list

We sure do! By submitting your World Cancer Day activity on the Map of Activities, you are eligible to receive a digital Certificate of Participation. If you would like to receive your copy, please email hello@worldcancerday.org with the name of the individual or organisation that you would like recognised on the certificate as well as a weblink to your World Cancer Day activity. Please note only one certificate will be sent per organiser.  

Please also note that certificates will be provided up until 28 February 2025. Any activities submitted to the Map after this date will not receive a certificate. 

We’re always trying to make World Cancer Day as accessible as possible for everyone. If you are unable to find the World Cancer Day materials in your language and would like to work together on the translation, we’d love to hear from you. Send us an email at hello@worldcancerday.org. 

Of course, our materials are all provided free to download and use. In fact, we encourage it. The only thing we ask is that you link to our website and/or give us credit. 

In copyright terms, the material is licensed under the following conditions: 

World Cancer Day Campaign Material by Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

• Attribution. You must give the original author credit. 
• Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one. 
• For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. 
• Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. 

Yes, we would appreciate if you would link to our website and acknowledge us as the creators of the material. 

You are more than welcome to add your logo and organisation’s details to the World Cancer Day materials; however, we do ask that you keep the World Cancer Day logo and website address without making any changes to the way it currently appears. 

All World Cancer Day materials will be made available in English, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi and Chinese (traditional and simplified). 

Selected World Cancer Day materials are also available in other languages. Use the language drop down box to see whether there are materials available in your language.  

If you still are unable to find materials in your language, we are always looking for support in translating the materials. Drop us a line at hello@worldcancerday.org to volunteer your support. 

These tips might help you troubleshoot the problem: 

• If you are uploading an image, make sure your image is a PNG, GIF, JPG or JPEG file. 
• One of the most frequent reasons why the image doesn’t upload is the image size: check that your file isn’t more than 300MB. 
• When you upload your image and the screen turns white, it most likely means your image is too small. We suggest trying with a higher resolution image. 
• If you are adding text to the poster, and the screen turns white, it may be because you have included a special character, like * or @. Sometimes, the tool doesn’t like these characters. Try excluding these characters from your text. 

Custom tool still not working? Contact us at hello@worldcancerday.org and we’ll see how we can help. 

Thank you for supporting World Cancer Day! You can make a donation easily online.

Go to World Cancer Day donations

Thanks for considering donating to World Cancer Day. You can make a secure online donation here.  

If you can’t or would rather not donate online, you can choose to make a donation via bank transfer or by mailing through a cheque. If you would like to find out how, please email the team at hello@worldcancerday.org for further details. 

Unfortunately, we are not in a position to respond to any questions regarding treatment nor able to assist patients medically and/or financially. We also regret that we won’t be able to provide any funding or sponsorship of activities or events that you are considering for World Cancer Day. 

If you are organising an activity or event – however big or small – in support of World Cancer Day, we invite you to share this with the world on the Map of Activities. 

Simply: 

1. Click on “Map of Activities” in the navigation bar  
2. Scroll down past the map, click on the “Add your activity” button 
3. Fill out the online form and submit your activity details 
4. Your activity will be then reviewed by our team and posted on the map within 24-48 hours 

Typically, your activity will show within 24 – 48 hours. Towards World Cancer Day, you can imagine we receive many submissions, so it may take a little bit longer for your activity to show up. Check back in a day or two. If you still can’t see your activity, feel free to email us at hello@worldcancerday.org 

No worries. You should have received an email with a unique link when you submitted your activity. Simply click on the link to edit your activity.  

If you can't locate that email, simply email us at hello@worldcancerday.org to edit your activity details. To help things along, ensure to include your organisation’s name and the title of your activity as well as the changes you would like made. 

• English: #WorldCancerDay and #UnitedByUnique
• French: #UnisParlUnique #JournéeMondialeContreLeCancer
• Spanish: #UnidosPorloÚnico #DíaMundialContraElCáncer
• Brazilian Portuguese: #UnidosPeloÚnico #DiaMundialDoCâncer
• German: #GemeinsamEinzigartig #Weltkrebstag
• Arabic: #مُتحدون وفريدون#  اليوم العالمي للسرطان
• Chinese simplified: #各有殊途同心共渡 #世界癌症日
• Chinese traditional: #無獨有偶有你有我 #世界癌症日
• Hindi: #साथ भीखास भी #विश्व कैंसर दिवस

Download the ready-made social media cards

Create your own social media post here (available soon) 

Are you looking to make an impact on social media? Our How-To-Guide: Social Media provides you with everything you need: downloadable material, ready-made messages, and more!

Share your experience of cancer by joining the Upside Down Challenge. Get creative, help us raise awareness and inspire others.

There are many resources available on this website and on other websites. We suggest you take a look at the following pages:  

• Why cancer? 
• What is cancer? 
• Preventing cancer 

If you are looking for specific information on cancer statistics in your own country, we encourage you to contact your national cancer society or explore the Cancer Today website. Feel free to consult the list of UICC member organisations to contact them directly. 

A chatbot is helping us answer the questions. You will be directed to a member of the World Cancer Day team should this not be sufficient.