Public Holidays by Country

Choose a country and year to see that year's public holidays with dates, weekdays, and names — useful for planning trips and work schedules.

How to use

  1. Select a country.
  2. Choose a year to see that year's public holidays.

Public holidays split into fixed dates and moving ones. The moving ones follow a lunar calendar or the spring equinox, and substitute-holiday rules differ by country, so the same date can be a day off in one place and an ordinary workday next door.

In depth

Holidays are dated three different ways

A fixed-date holiday falls on the same Gregorian date annually: New Year's Day, Christmas, most national days.

Weekday-based holidays land on the nth given weekday of a month. US Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November, and many US holidays are deliberately placed on Mondays to create long weekends.

Lunar and lunisolar holidays — Lunar New Year, Buddha's Birthday, Chuseok, the Islamic calendar's observances — move on the Gregorian calendar every year.

Governments also designate ad hoc holidays, often to bridge a gap between an existing holiday and a weekend.

Substitute holidays

Many countries move a holiday that lands on a weekend to the next working day.

The UK calls these bank holidays in lieu; Korea calls them substitute holidays; Japan uses a similar mechanism.

Which holidays qualify varies and has been expanded repeatedly, so older reference material frequently states outdated rules.

Check the current year specifically rather than assuming last year's pattern.

Public holiday does not automatically mean a day off

In many countries the official list applies to government offices, with private-sector entitlement set by employment law, collective agreements or company policy.

The UK has no statutory right to bank holidays off — it depends on your contract. Korea phased statutory public holidays into private employment by company size, and workplaces under five employees remain outside it.

US federal holidays bind federal employees; private employers choose for themselves.

So check your contract rather than the calendar.

Regional patterns worth knowing

Japan has Golden Week in late April and early May, and Obon in mid-August. The Happy Monday system shifts several holidays to Mondays.

China takes week-long breaks at Spring Festival and National Day, offset by mandatory make-up working weekends either side.

In Muslim-majority countries, Ramadan and Eid follow the lunar calendar and move annually. Some observe Friday as the weekly rest day.

Europe has many Easter-related holidays, whose dates move with the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox.

Planning around them

Flights and hotels are expensive and crowded during holiday periods. Knowing the dates lets you shift by a day or two for a large saving.

Government offices, banks and some shops close. Anything involving visas or paperwork needs checking first.

Working with counterparts abroad — scheduling a deadline across another country's holiday means no reply. Chinese Spring Festival, Eid, and the Western Christmas-to-New-Year period are the longest.

Payments and transfers are delayed by the receiving country's banking holidays too.

Data source

Holiday data comes from an external API (date.nager.at). The selected country and year are sent to that service — noted in section 4 of the privacy policy.

Ad hoc holidays and recent legislative changes may lag. For anything that matters, confirm with the relevant government's announcement.

FAQ

Which countries are supported?

Around 100 countries worldwide; pick one from the country selector.

Where does the data come from?

From open public-holiday data (Nager.Date); substitute or ad-hoc holidays can vary by country.

Are one-off or substitute holidays included?

Regularly scheduled holidays are reliable, but newly announced one-off or substitute holidays can take time to appear in the underlying data.

Method and sources

What this tool bases its numbers on, and how far those numbers go.

What this tool is
A reference list built from open data, not a government gazette. For anything with money or a deadline attached, confirm against the official notice of the country in question.
Formula
Holiday dates come from the open Nager.Date public-holiday dataset, queried per country and year, and the weekday is derived from the date. Fixed-date, nth-weekday and lunar or lunisolar holidays are all returned already resolved to Gregorian dates for the year you pick.
Worked example
US Thanksgiving is defined as the fourth Thursday of November. For 2026 the Thursdays are the 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th, so the holiday falls on 2026-11-26.
Limitations
  • Newly announced holidays lag. One-off national days and substitute days decreed a few weeks ahead often reach open datasets late, or not at all.
  • Regional holidays are uneven. In federal countries a day off can be state-, province- or canton-only, and the dataset does not always mark which.
  • «Public holiday» is not one thing. Bank holidays, school holidays, optional holidays and days that are only paid leave for some sectors are treated differently country by country.
  • Lunar and Islamic-calendar holidays depend on the observance rule a country uses, so the same festival can differ by a day between neighbours.
  • Historical years are weaker than current ones. Rules for substitute holidays have been changed and widened repeatedly, and past data does not always reflect the rule in force then.
Sources
Effective date
Last reviewed

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