Home / Australian public holidays by state
Australian public holidays by state
Every public holiday for your state or territory in 2026 and 2027, with the next one coming up. The data is bundled with the page, so it works with no connection — and each year lists exactly which official source it came from.
Choose your state and year
Public holidays
| Date | Day | Holiday | Also in | In |
|---|
How state holidays differ
Six holidays are observed in every jurisdiction: New Year's Day, Australia Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day and Christmas Day. Everything else is set by each state and territory, which is why two businesses 60 kilometres apart can have different days off.
- Anzac Day 2026 falls on a Saturday. NSW, the ACT and WA declare an additional public holiday on Monday 27 April. Victoria and Queensland observe only the Saturday. That is the same date with three different outcomes.
- Boxing Day 2026 falls on a Saturday. NSW, Victoria, Queensland, WA, the NT and the ACT keep the Saturday and add Monday 28 December as an extra holiday. South Australia observes Proclamation Day on 26 December and also adds the Monday. Tasmania simply holds Boxing Day on Monday 28 December, with nothing on the Saturday.
- The King's Birthday is not one date. NSW, Victoria, SA, Tasmania, the ACT and the NT observe it on the second Monday in June. Queensland observes it on the first Monday in October. WA sets its own date, and in 2026 it is Monday 28 September — with some regional areas on a different date again.
- Labour Day moves by state, and changes its name. It is the second Monday in March in Victoria (Labour Day) and Tasmania (Eight Hours Day), the first Monday in March in WA, the first Monday in May in Queensland and the Northern Territory (May Day), and the first Monday in October in NSW, the ACT and SA.
Holidays that do not apply to everyone
Nothing the source publishes is dropped. Where a holiday does not apply to the whole state, it is flagged instead. Three flags appear in the table above:
- Regional — observed only in part of the state. The Royal Hobart Regatta and the Royal Hobart Show are Hobart-area holidays, Recreation Day covers the Tasmanian areas that do not observe the Regatta, and the Melbourne Cup applies in regional Victoria on a date that some areas set themselves. WA's King's Birthday carries the same flag, because some regional areas hold it on a different date.
- Part day — runs for part of a day only. Christmas Eve is a part-day public holiday from 6pm in Queensland and from 7pm in the Northern Territory and South Australia; New Year's Eve is a part-day holiday in the NT and SA.
- Bank holiday — a public holiday for banks and some financial institutions, and for some employees under some awards, but not for everyone. The first Monday in August is one in NSW. It appears in 2025, where the open dataset lists it, and is absent from 2026 and 2027, where Fair Work does not.
The three years are not perfectly comparable, because they come from different publishers. The 2025 open dataset splits the Northern Territory's August show day into the individual regional show days; Fair Work's 2026 and 2027 lists show the same period as the NT's Picnic Day, with no regional split. If you are in the NT, or anywhere a date only applies locally, your territory's own list is the authority — it is linked in the sources below.
Sources for each year
The data.gov.au open dataset that used to carry this information is now marked inactive and stops at 2025; its own page now points readers to the state and territory governments. So this page uses it for 2025 and, for the years that matter now, the Fair Work Ombudsman's national list, which is compiled from the states' own publications.
| Year | Source | Licence | Checked |
|---|
Why a public holiday matters to a business
- It is usually not a normal working day. Employees have a right to be absent on a public holiday, and an employer can only ask someone to work if the request is reasonable and a refusal would also be reasonable.
- Different pay rates may apply. Awards and agreements commonly set public holiday rates or an extra day off instead. That is a Fair Work question, not a calculator one.
- It can move a due date. If a BAS, payment or notice deadline lands on a weekend or public holiday, you usually have until the next business day — which is exactly what the BAS due date finder applies.
- It affects how you count days. A 14-day payment term that spans Easter covers fewer working days than one that does not. The invoice generator states the term in plain calendar days on the invoice itself, so nothing is left to implication.
Holiday data:
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