Public holidays in New Zealand 2026

New Zealand has 11 nationwide public holidays in 2026. That count covers the holidays observed across the whole country only: regional anniversary days, which vary by province, sit on top of this list, so many residents get additional days off beyond what’s shown here.

The shape of the year

The year opens with New Year’s Day on Thursday 1 January 2026 and closes with Boxing Day on Monday 28 December 2026. The longest gap without a nationwide holiday runs 108 days, between Matariki and Labour Day - a stretch worth planning around if you’re mapping out leave.

Weekday luck in 2026

How the calendar falls matters as much as how many holidays there are. In 2026, 5 of the 11 nationwide holidays land on a Monday and 5 land on a Friday, giving ten long weekends built into the year by default. None fall on a weekend, so nobody nationwide loses a public holiday to a Saturday or Sunday this year. That’s not guaranteed every year: when a holiday does fall on a weekend, it’s often a lost day off unless local rules move it to the nearest working day, and whether that happens varies by country and by holiday.

The table below lists all 11 dates, names and weekdays for New Zealand in 2026, drawn from the Nager.Date open holiday dataset as of this page’s review. Governments can and do adjust holiday dates after publication, so treat this as a working reference rather than a permanent record.