Indonesia 2026 public holiday guide
Indonesia’s public holidays blend Islamic, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and national commemorations — including New Year’s Day, Nyepi, Good Friday, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, Independence Day (17 August), and Christmas. Lebaran (Eid al-Fitr) triggers a massive homecoming (mudik).
On Bali, Nyepi is a near-total day of silence. On Java and Sumatra, Eid logistics matter more for factories and shipping. Confirm plant calendars with local partners.
Faith-based dates move with the lunar Islamic calendar; recheck official notices for final planning.
Regional tips
- Eid al-Fitr: extreme transport demand.
- Nyepi: travel and lighting limits on Bali.
- Independence Day: nationwide ceremonies.
- Christmas: strong retail season in big cities.
Indonesia 2026 public holiday table
This 2026 view lists 10 public holiday dates for Indonesia. The earliest entry is 2026-01-01 (New Year's Day, Thu) and the latest is 2026-12-25 (Christmas Day). The table below is fully readable without JavaScript.
| Date | Weekday | Holiday |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-01-01 | Thu | New Year's Day |
| 2026-03-19 | Thu | Nyepi (Balinese New Year) |
| 2026-03-21 | Sat | Hari Raya Puasa |
| 2026-04-03 | Fri | Good Friday |
| 2026-05-01 | Fri | Labour Day |
| 2026-05-14 | Thu | Ascension Day |
| 2026-05-27 | Wed | Hari Raya Haji |
| 2026-06-01 | Mon | Pancasila Day |
| 2026-08-17 | Mon | Independence Day |
| 2026-12-25 | Fri | Christmas Day |
Note: Compiled from public notices for planning. Confirm critical dates with official sources.
Two calendars running at once
Indonesia publishes its year off in two layers, and foreign teams routinely read only the first one. The layer shown in the table on this page is hari libur nasional, the national public holidays. Sitting alongside it is cuti bersama, best translated as collective leave: extra non-working days placed next to a holiday so a stray Tuesday or Thursday becomes a continuous break.
The two are not legally identical. A national holiday is simply a day off. Cuti bersama, for most private-sector employees, is normally charged against the annual leave entitlement, which is why Indonesian colleagues sometimes talk about their leave balance being spent before they have chosen anything. For an outsider the practical consequence is simpler: the country stops for noticeably more days than the ten listed here.
If your planning depends on knowing exactly which days are dead, the only reliable document is the joint decree published for that specific year. It lists national holidays and collective leave together, in one table.
Who signs the calendar, and how firm it is
No single ministry owns the Indonesian holiday calendar. It is issued as a joint decree signed by the Ministry of Manpower, the Ministry of Religious Affairs, and the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform, usually released during the second half of the preceding year. That timing is generous by regional standards: companies can normally build a shift roster and negotiate delivery dates six months or more ahead.
Published is not the same as frozen. Governments have adjusted collective leave dates closer to the event, sometimes for traffic management reasons, sometimes for fiscal ones. Religious dates carry a second kind of uncertainty. Islamic holidays are confirmed by the Ministry of Religious Affairs only after the new moon is observed, through a sighting process known as rukyatul hilal, and the confirmed date can land one day away from the astronomical estimate printed on calendars months earlier.
The workable habit is a two-pass one. Use the official calendar for rough planning, then re-confirm the actual closure window with your Indonesian counterpart two or three weeks before the event. March and May are the months where this matters most in 2026.
How 2026 falls
The weekday alignment in 2026 is unusually favourable for long weekends, which means collective leave has obvious places to attach itself.
- Thursday 1 January - New Year's Day
- Thursday 19 March - Nyepi, the Balinese Day of Silence and Saka New Year
- Saturday 21 March - Idul Fitri, universally called Lebaran
- Friday 3 April - Good Friday
- Friday 1 May - Labour Day
- Thursday 14 May - Ascension Day
- Wednesday 27 May - Idul Adha
- Monday 1 June - Pancasila Day
- Monday 17 August - Independence Day
- Friday 25 December - Christmas Day
March 2026 deserves its own plan
Nyepi falls on Thursday 19 March and Lebaran on Saturday 21 March. Two events with almost nothing in common, affecting different islands in different ways, land in the same week. Bali goes completely silent on the Thursday, reopens on the Friday, and then absorbs a wave of domestic holidaymakers over the Lebaran period. Java does the opposite: Nyepi passes as an ordinary day off, and the real shutdown begins as Lebaran approaches.
A Saturday Lebaran tends to widen the break rather than narrow it. Because the holiday itself lands on a day that is already non-working for many offices, there is more reason to place collective leave on the surrounding weekdays. If you have a shipment to clear, a month-end close, an audit, or a system cutover anywhere near the third week of March, move the whole thing earlier or later rather than trying to thread it through.
Lebaran, mudik, and the money that moves before it
Lebaran is the only point in the Indonesian year when the whole country changes rhythm at once. Productivity begins sliding during the final week of Ramadan. In the days before the holiday, offices and factories in Jakarta, Surabaya and Bandung empty out as people travel to their home towns, a migration Indonesians call mudik.
What this looks like in practice is specific. Toll roads across Java run one-way and contraflow schemes to absorb the outbound volume. The ferry crossing between Merak and Bakauheni queues for hours. Train tickets on popular routes sell out the day the booking window opens, and domestic airfares multiply. The return flow, arus balik, applies the same pressure in reverse about a week later.
Employers face a cash obligation attached to the date. Religious holiday allowance, known as THR, must be paid to employees ahead of the holiday, with the regulation requiring settlement several days in advance rather than on the day itself. Companies with an Indonesian entity should have this provisioned well before March.
Coming back is gradual. Staff return over several days rather than all at once, the first week back includes halal bihalal gatherings where colleagues formally exchange apologies and greetings, and factory output typically needs one to two weeks to recover its pre-holiday level. Treat the week after Lebaran as partially available, not fully.
Nyepi: being a visitor on the day Bali stops
Nyepi is the Balinese Hindu new year in the Saka calendar, and it is observed by doing nothing. Four restraints apply across the island for twenty-four hours: no fire or light, no work, no travel, no entertainment. The intention is that the island should appear uninhabited.
Enforcement is real and it reaches tourists. Ngurah Rai International Airport closes for roughly a full day, typically from early morning to early the following morning, with no commercial arrivals or departures. Ports shut, public transport stops, and the only people moving on the street are pecalang, the traditional village security officers, plus emergency vehicles.
Hotels stay open but operate under the rules. Guests are asked to remain inside the property, curtains are drawn after dark and lighting is kept low, pools and beach access are often closed, and food service shrinks to a limited menu or set hours. In some years the provincial authorities have asked mobile operators to suspend data services for the day, so plan for the possibility of being offline.
The two adjacent days are worth catching. The evening before, pengrupukan, is one of the loudest nights of the Balinese year: villages parade enormous ogoh-ogoh effigies representing malevolent spirits, then burn them. The following day, ngembak geni, life resumes. Because Nyepi follows the Saka calendar, its Gregorian date moves annually, so confirm it against the current year's announcement before booking anything.
One frequent misreading: Nyepi is a national holiday, but the silence rules apply in Bali and in Hindu communities elsewhere, not across the whole country.
A single list covering several religions
The Indonesian public holiday list is deliberately plural. In 2026 you can see Islamic dates in Idul Fitri and Idul Adha, Christian dates in Good Friday, Ascension Day and Christmas, and a Hindu date in Nyepi. The full annual decree normally also carries Buddhist and Chinese New Year observances along with additional Islamic dates, so treat the table here as the core set and the decree as the complete one.
Regional variation matters more than the list itself. Christmas and Good Friday are genuinely city-wide events in Manado in North Sulawesi, in Medan, across East Nusa Tenggara and in Papua, where churches and family gatherings occupy the whole weekend. In Jakarta and Surabaya the same dates are quieter and the malls trade normally. Idul Adha works the other way: the communal slaughter and distribution of meat at mosques and open ground is visible almost everywhere in Java and Sumatra, and livestock markets busy up the surrounding roads for a fortnight beforehand.
17 August, and the shape of the second half
Independence Day marks the proclamation read by Sukarno and Hatta in 1945. The official commemoration is a morning flag ceremony, performed by Paskibraka, a selected and drilled corps of student flag-bearers, repeated at schools, government offices and Indonesian missions abroad.
The neighbourhood version is where the day actually lives. Through August, residential lanes are hung with red and white bunting and homemade arches, and communities run lomba, competitions funded by the residents themselves: climbing a greased areca pole for prizes, sack races, eating crackers hung from a string without using hands, tug of war, games for children. Much of it happens in the weeks leading up to the date rather than on it.
In 2026 the date is a Monday, producing a three-day weekend and a predictable domestic travel peak. Pancasila Day on Monday 1 June does the same thing earlier in the year; it commemorates the 1945 speech in which the five founding principles were articulated, and it is a relatively recent addition to the national calendar.
What actually closes
Government offices, courts, immigration and schools close on national holidays and on collective leave days alike. Bank branches close and clearing is suspended, so inbound and outbound transfers settle on the next working day. If your payment cycle lands near a long break, especially at month end, build in the buffer rather than assuming same-day value.
Retail runs the other way. Large malls trade normally on most holidays and sometimes extend hours, and convenience store chains barely close at all. The genuine exception is the Lebaran period itself, when roadside warung close en masse, ride-hailing drivers become scarce, and both waiting times and prices rise sharply for a few days. Bali on Nyepi is the one day of the year when even the airport is shut.
Logistics deserve separate attention. Major ports including Tanjung Priok run thin over long breaks, so customs clearance and container release slow down and demurrage risk rises. Import deliveries that need to land in March or May should be pulled forward rather than squeezed in.
Where foreign teams get it wrong
Most of the avoidable mistakes come from treating the published table as complete.
- Assuming ten holidays means ten non-working days. Collective leave regularly pushes the real total higher, especially around Lebaran.
- Assuming Islamic dates are fixed in January. They are confirmed after the moon sighting and can shift by a day, and some organisations begin a day earlier based on calculation.
- Assuming the whole country falls silent on Nyepi. Outside Bali and other Hindu communities it is simply a day off.
- Assuming Bali is quiet during Lebaran. It is one of the most popular domestic destinations of that week, with prices to match.
- Assuming staff return at full capacity the morning after Lebaran. Expect a staggered return and a first week partly given over to gatherings.
- Assuming a Saturday holiday costs you nothing. In 2026 the Saturday Lebaran is likely to spread the break across surrounding weekdays instead.
Cross-border planning notes
Indonesia recognizes many faith-based holidays. Bali’s Nyepi is a near-total pause, while Java feels Eid homecoming (mudik) more in logistics. Manufacturers should buffer shipping around Lebaran.
Where these dates come from
Indonesia dates follow government decisions on religious holidays and collective-leave decrees. Nyepi on Bali is not the same event as Java’s Eid homecoming.
Primary references for verification
Indonesia FAQ
Are the ten dates listed here the full set of non-working days in Indonesia?
No. The table shows national public holidays only. Indonesia adds a second category, cuti bersama or collective leave, which the government places next to holidays to create continuous breaks. Once those are included the real number of non-working days is meaningfully higher, and the Lebaran break in particular can run for a week or more. For scheduling deliveries, audits or travel, work from the joint ministerial decree issued for that year rather than from the holiday count alone.
What is the difference between a national holiday and cuti bersama for employees?
A national holiday is a statutory day off that does not touch anyone's leave balance. Cuti bersama is different: for most private-sector employees it is normally deducted from the annual leave entitlement, which is why Indonesian staff may find part of their yearly allowance already committed before they plan anything themselves. Foreign companies operating an Indonesian entity should state clearly in their HR policy how these days are counted, because ambiguity surfaces painfully at year-end leave reconciliation.
How long does Indonesia actually stop for Lebaran in 2026?
The table lists Saturday 21 March. In practice Lebaran is celebrated over two days, and collective leave is normally added around it, so the effective shutdown frequently spans a week or longer once travel time home and back is included. Because the date depends on the moon sighting, everything can shift by a day. Check the joint decree in late February, then confirm the actual closure window directly with your Indonesian partner in early March.
Can I fly in or out of Bali on Nyepi?
No. Ngurah Rai International Airport closes for approximately twenty-four hours, generally from early morning on Nyepi until early the next morning, and no commercial flights operate in that window. Seaports and island transport stop as well. If your itinerary collides with the date, the only options are to arrive a day earlier or leave a day later, with accommodation booked in advance. Guests already on the island stay inside their hotel and follow the lighting and movement restrictions.
Why do the Islamic holiday dates move, and why can they change late?
The Islamic calendar is lunar and runs roughly eleven days shorter than the Gregorian year, so Idul Fitri and Idul Adha drift earlier each year. In Indonesia the final date is set by the Ministry of Religious Affairs after the new moon sighting, rukyatul hilal, with astronomical calculation used as guidance rather than as the decision. A one-day difference from the predicted date is normal, and some Islamic organisations that rely on calculation may begin observance a day earlier.
Is it a bad time to visit Indonesia during Lebaran?
It depends entirely on whether you plan to move around. Staying put in a large city can be pleasant: Jakarta empties, traffic becomes unrecognisably light and hotel rates soften, at the cost of many small restaurants and shops being shut. Travelling domestically is the opposite experience, with flights, trains and ferries saturated, fares elevated and highways congested in both directions. Bali is busy rather than quiet during this period, since it is a favourite domestic destination.
Which periods should I avoid when scheduling work with Indonesian teams?
The clearest one to avoid is the Lebaran window, running from the final week of Ramadan through the second week after the holiday, which in 2026 covers roughly mid-March to early April. Avoid Nyepi outright if any part of your operation sits in Bali, since the island is unreachable that day. May is crowded with holidays, and there are long weekends around 1 June and 17 August. Mark these as unavailable in the project plan from the start.
Why so many holidays?
Indonesia recognizes multiple religious holidays plus national days.
Can I go out on Nyepi?
On Bali, outdoor activity is tightly restricted; follow hotel guidance.
How long do logistics pause?
Delays of several days around Eid are common — build buffer into contracts.