South Africa public holidays
Public holidays for calendar year 2026 under the Public Holidays Act 36 of 1994 — twelve statutory days listed in the Schedule to the Act, of which two (Good Friday and Family Day) are movable and tied to Easter. Section 2(1) provides that whenever a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday is a public holiday; s2A empowers the President to declare additional public holidays by proclamation in the Gazette.
| Current value | 26 days held |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2026-01-01 |
| In force until | 2026-12-31 |
| Official source | Public Holidays Act No. 36 of 1994, Schedule (twelve named days) read with s2(1) (Sunday-to-Monday rule) and s2A (Presidential proclamation of additional days) — official list published by the South African Government: 'whenever any public holiday falls on a Sunday, the Monday following on it shall be a public holiday' |
| Last verified | 2026-07-24 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
THE SUNDAY RULE BITES ONCE IN 2026. National Women's Day, 9 August, falls on a SUNDAY in 2026, so under s2(1) of the Public Holidays Act 36 of 1994 the public holiday is MONDAY 10 AUGUST 2026. The list above therefore serves 10 August, not 9 August; calendars that list 9 August as the 2026 holiday are quoting the statutory date rather than the observed one. Note the rule is Sunday-only — there is NO Saturday transfer in South African law, so Human Rights Day (Sat 21 March 2026) and the Day of Goodwill (Sat 26 December 2026) are simply lost to the weekend, and 2026 is a weak year for long weekends as a result. MOVABLE DAYS: Easter Sunday 2026 is 5 April, so Good Friday is 3 April 2026 and Family Day (the Monday after Easter, formerly Easter Monday) is 6 April 2026. Note South Africa does NOT make Easter Sunday itself a public holiday. Twelve statutory days is the standing count; the twelfth, the Day of Goodwill, is the 26 December day sometimes called Boxing Day elsewhere. ADDITIONAL ONCE-OFF DAY — DO NOT SERVE AS FACT (not yet gazetted at confirmation): the 2026 Local Government Elections were set by President Ramaphosa on 30 April 2026 for WEDNESDAY 4 NOVEMBER 2026, and the executive and the Electoral Commission have both indicated that day will be declared a public holiday (following the precedent of 1 November 2021, declared a holiday for the previous local government elections). That declaration requires a separate s2A proclamation in the Government Gazette by the President, in addition to the Minister of Cooperative Governance's proclamation of the election date itself. As at 24 July 2026 the s2A public-holiday proclamation had NOT been located in the Gazette, so 4 November 2026 is deliberately EXCLUDED from the served list. Re-check before Q4 2026: if proclaimed, 2026 becomes a thirteen-holiday year. Note also that once-off election-day holidays are creatures of s2A, not of the Act's Schedule, and do not recur. PAY RULE (Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997, s18): a public holiday falling on a day the employee would ordinarily work is paid at ordinary rate even if not worked; work performed on a public holiday is paid at double the ordinary rate (or ordinary pay plus the amount earned, whichever is greater). By agreement a public holiday may be exchanged for another day. Access note: gov.za/about-sa/public-holidays is the canonical government list and fetches cleanly; it carries the statutory dates, so the Sunday-transfer arithmetic above was applied by us from s2(1) rather than read off a pre-transferred calendar. 2027 calendar loaded 2026-07-27: National statutory public holidays under the Public Holidays Act 36 of 1994, including the Act's Sunday-to-Monday observance rule (s.2(1)). Source: Public Holidays Act 36 of 1994 (https://www.gov.za/about-sa/public-holidays).
Get it programmatically
curl https://afriref.dev/v1/za/public-holidays
# Free.
# History: curl https://afriref.dev/v1/za/public-holidays/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://afriref.dev/provenance/za/public-holidaysOther South Africa series: policy interest rate · VAT rate · minimum wage · inflation rate (CPI) · corporate tax rate · income tax rates · official exchange rates · statutory interest rate · VAT registration threshold · withholding tax rates