Planning Your Holiday Calendar

National holidays

Three national holidays are fixed by date every year and observed across India:

• Republic Day — 26 January
• Independence Day — 15 August
• Gandhi Jayanti — 2 October

State and festival holidays

Beyond the three national holidays, each state government notifies its own list of public holidays every year — covering regional festivals, harvest festivals, and dates specific to that state. These change year to year (festival dates especially, since many follow the lunar calendar) and differ by state, so they need to be checked against your state's official gazette notification for the specific year, not carried over from the year before.

Building your calendar

• Start with the 3 fixed national holidays.
• Add your state's notified holidays for the year, checked against the current gazette — not last year's list.
• If you operate in multiple states, decide whether each location follows its own state list or a common company-wide list.
• Add a small number of restricted/optional holidays employees can pick from, for festivals your company doesn't observe as a full holiday.
• Publish the full calendar at the start of the year so teams can plan around it.