St. John Paul II called the Jubilee "a year of the remission of sins and of the punishments due to them," a year of reconciliation, conversion and penance. Each one is proclaimed by a papal bull of indiction, which sets its dates, its theme and its sacred places; the Apostolic Penitentiary then publishes the conditions for its indulgence, which hold for that Jubilee only. An ordinary Jubilee lasts about a year: that of 2025 ran from December 24, 2024, when Pope Francis opened it, to January 6, 2026, when Pope Leo XIV closed the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica. The Holy See counted the Great Jubilee of 2000 as the twenty-sixth ordinary Jubilee.
You do not have to go to Rome to take part. Rome is the center, because the Holy Year began as a pilgrimage to the tombs of Sts. Peter and Paul, but recent Jubilees have been kept in every diocese. In 2025 each bishop opened the Holy Year in his cathedral, and the Penitentiary's decree attached the indulgence to Rome's four papal basilicas, to three basilicas in the Holy Land, and to the cathedral or other churches the local bishop designated. Under the same decree the sick, the elderly, prisoners and cloistered religious could gain it where they were.
Good to know: as of October 2026 no Jubilee is in progress and none has been proclaimed since, so the 2025 norms are history, not a current way to gain an indulgence. A Jubilee is not an obligation, and each one sets its own rules. For any future Jubilee, read its bull of indiction and the Penitentiary's decree, or ask your diocese, before assuming what applied last time.