Thailand Holiday Calendar

Thailand 2026 public holiday guide

Last reviewed 2026-09-23 · Maintained by the site operator

Thailand’s public holidays include New Year’s Day, Makha Bucha, Chakri Memorial Day, Songkran, Labour Day, Visakha Bucha, royal birthday holidays, Constitution Day and New Year’s Eve. The Cabinet publishes the list and can add bridge days between a holiday and a weekend. Memorising 13–15 April is not enough in a year when an extra Monday is declared.

Songkran is the nationwide water festival and a real business shutdown. Bangkok and Chiang Mai are the densest; some firms start from 12 April. Waterproof bags, sun protection, and no irreplaceable documents in the street. For freight, treat the second and third weeks of April as a hard gap and ship before 10 April.

Royal commemorations close public offices; hotels and beaches stay open. 31 December and 1 January are peak island weeks. Labour Day on 1 May sits near Vietnam’s late-April break, creating a regional spring double peak. Open attractions do not mean banks or customs are at full speed.

Buddhist dates such as Visakha Bucha move with the Thai lunar calendar. Confirm the Cabinet list for the year before you print a customer-holiday notice. Street water fights are separate from temple rites; hotels rarely close. If you are flying into Phuket or Koh Samui at year-end, lock rooms early rather than waiting for a late discount that usually does not arrive.

Planning tips

• Songkran: liveliest in Bangkok and Chiang Mai.
• Royal commemorations: public offices closed.
• Year-end: strong demand for beach resorts.
• Labour Day: more short city getaways.

Thailand 2026 public holiday table

This 2026 view lists 17 public holiday dates for Thailand. The earliest entry is 2026-01-01 (New Year's Day, Thu) and the latest is 2026-12-31 (New Year's Eve). The longest consecutive block in the dataset is about 3 days (2026-04-13–2026-04-15). The table below is fully readable without JavaScript.

Note: Compiled from public notices for planning. Confirm critical dates with official sources.

The Cabinet list is the source of truth

Thai public holidays are announced by the Cabinet, not locked forever in a single statute. The list mixes royal and national commemorations with Buddhist days that move on the Thai calendar. The Cabinet can also declare a weekday between a holiday and a weekend as an extra day off, stitching scattered dates into a longer break. Memorising 13–15 April is not enough.

The 2026 spine used on this site includes New Year on 1–2 January, Makha Bucha on 3 March, Chakri Memorial Day on 6 April, Songkran on 13–15 April, Labour Day on 1 May, Coronation Day on 4 May, Queen Suthida’s Birthday on 3 June, the King’s Birthday on 28 July, Mother’s Day on 12 August, King Bhumibol Memorial Day on 13 October, Chulalongkorn Day on 23 October, Father’s Day on 5 December, Constitution Day on 10 December and New Year’s Eve on 31 December. If a Buddhist festival is missing from a dataset in a given year, that does not prove it was cancelled — the Cabinet list for that year still governs.

Contracts that say “Thai public holidays” should mean the current Cabinet list, not a frozen annex from last year. Follow the province where the work happens, not the HQ registration address.

How 2026 actually lays out

The year is front-loaded and then busy again at the end. January opens with the New Year block; March has a one-day religious pause; April is the national shock — Chakri Memorial Day followed almost immediately by Songkran. May then stacks Labour Day and Coronation Day in the same early stretch.

June through August are mostly royal commemorations. Offices and banks close; beaches stay open. October adds two memorial days; December brings Father’s Day, Constitution Day and the island peak around New Year’s Eve.

For remote teams, mark mid-April and late December as hard gaps, early May as a soft gap, and other royal days as one-day public-sector pauses.

• 1–2 January — New Year
• 3 March — Makha Bucha
• 6 April — Chakri Memorial Day; 13–15 April — Songkran
• 1 May — Labour Day; 4 May — Coronation Day
• 3 June — Queen’s Birthday; 28 July — King’s Birthday; 12 August — Mother’s Day
• 13 October — King Bhumibol Memorial Day; 23 October — Chulalongkorn Day
• 5 December — Father’s Day; 10 December — Constitution Day; 31 December — New Year’s Eve

Songkran is a real shutdown, not a three-day postcard

Thai New Year combines water fights, temple visits and homecoming. Bangkok’s Khao San Road and Chiang Mai’s old city are the densest. Offices, counters and domestic freight slow through mid-April; some firms start from 12 April or earlier.

Travellers: waterproof bags, sun protection, no irreplaceable documents in the street. Supply chains: treat the second and third weeks of April as a hard gap and ship before 10 April. Open attractions do not mean customs is at full speed.

Songkran sits near Vietnam’s late-April Liberation Day / Labour Day wave. Do not schedule a joint Thai–Vietnamese acceptance test in the second half of April.

Royal days, Buddhist days and Labour Day

Chakri Memorial Day, Coronation Day, the royal birthdays, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, King Bhumibol Memorial Day and Chulalongkorn Day form the civic and royal spine. Public offices close; hotels and restaurants usually stay open. Beach crowds are a poor proxy for office attendance.

Makha Bucha on 3 March 2026 is a major Buddhist observance. Other Buddhist holidays move with the Thai calendar; any forecast is overwritten by the Cabinet list. For most foreign firms these are one-day pauses, not Songkran-scale carnivals.

Labour Day on 1 May overlaps China and Vietnam. Coronation Day on 4 May follows immediately, so early May is a bad window for Bangkok signatures and filings.

What closes, and which calendar the plant follows

Government counters, bank branches and schools close. Airports, hotels, restaurants and attractions mostly stay open — often busier than usual. Factory shutdowns vary by sector and order book. Export plants on the Eastern Seaboard may keep running while domestic logistics and approvals still slow.

A Bangkok regional HQ day off is not automatically a day off in Chiang Mai or Rayong. Follow the place where the goods and people sit.

Mobile banking usually works; large corporate payments, letter-of-credit presentations and wet-ink government filings should clear by the afternoon of the last working day before the holiday.

Travel reality and the year-end island spike

Domestic flights and coaches tighten during Songkran; roads in and out of Bangkok clog. If you must visit in April, put client meetings a full week before or after, and treat the middle as tourism only.

31 December and 1 January are peak weeks for Phuket, Samui and Krabi. Lock rooms early; do not wait for a late discount. Constitution Day on 10 December can siphon more Bangkok–island capacity into the same month.

The rainy season roughly spans May to October, with west- and east-coast patterns that do not move in lockstep. Holiday planning still needs a weather layer for outdoor itineraries and small airports.

Cross-border work and supply chain

April is the month that belongs in every contract buffer. Domestic freight slows; customs and inspection queues build; wires and LC presentations that hit the holiday edge can slip by several days. A default “last sailing before 10 April” rule beats arguing force majeure afterwards.

Some festivals overlap Malaysia and Singapore; National Day and bridge rules do not. Dual-registered firms need two rows. Thailand’s Coronation Day on 4 May also collides with the UK Early May bank holiday and China’s Labour Day window — a classic multi-market blackout week.

The common remote-team failure is importing only Songkran’s three days and missing Cabinet bridges and royal commemorations. Colour Cabinet holidays and company-discretion days separately.

Bangkok HQ versus the Eastern Seaboard

A Bangkok regional-HQ roster is a poor proxy for national plant downtime. Whether lines in Chonburi, Rayong or Samut Prakan stop depends on orders, customer inspection windows and overtime agreements — not only on red letters in the Cabinet list. Many plants pause for Songkran; on Coronation Day or the King’s Birthday a line may keep running while domestic trucking slows.

For procurement and quality teams, that means asking which province the people sit in. Booking a Bangkok meeting and an Eastern Seaboard inspection on the same day often yields one side off and the other still producing — or the reverse. Split shared calendars by plant instance, not by a single “Thailand” swatch.

Ports and airports usually keep core operations on public holidays, but customs brokers, inspection houses and bank presentation windows slow. Vessel cut-offs can hold while documents and wires stick on the afternoon before the holiday. Write an explicit “last presentation day” into the playbook.

If you also run front-office or shared-service teams in Chiang Mai or Phuket, add a tourism-city layer: beaches stay open on royal commemorations while local bank branches and counters close. Hotel lobby traffic is not evidence that back-office colleagues are working.

Pay and rostering: a public holiday is not automatic triple pay

Thai labour rules on public-holiday work have their own compensation structure. Multipliers and coverage depend on employment type, whether substitute leave has already been arranged, and company policy. The safest move for foreign firms is to ask local HR or counsel before rostering — not to transplant China’s “triple on statutory days, double on rest days” slogan.

Cabinet bridge days, company discretionary days and true public holidays may be treated differently for pay. Contracts and handbooks should define all three; shared calendars should colour them separately so rostering tools do not count a bridge day as ordinary annual leave.

For secondees and outsourced staff, check which calendar the assignment contract follows. In the common triangle — Singapore HQ, Thai employment contract, Eastern Seaboard plant — the recurring dispute is which day counts as attendance. Write the work-location holiday list into the secondment annex.

This site is not legal advice. Overtime, dismissal and leave encashment follow current Thai labour rules and competent-authority guidance, checked against the latest Cabinet list.

Pitfalls that keep repeating

Songkran is not “only three days.” The core is usually 13–15 April; practice often stretches to a full week.

Tourism open does not mean bureaucracy open. Royal days are the clearest example.

Buddhist Gregorian dates move. Reusing last year’s Makha Bucha or Visakha date in a contract annex is a classic error.

Do not treat the Thai list as a stand-in for Vietnam or Malaysia. The spring dual peak and the year-end island rush each need their own buffer.

Treat this page as a planning start. Confirm against the Cabinet list for the year and your employer’s roster.

• Check Cabinet bridge days every year
• Plan Songkran as a full-week pause
• Tourism open ≠ bureaucracy open
• Lock island trips early
• Avoid joint Thai–Vietnam acceptance in late April
• Treat early May (Labour + Coronation) as a soft blackout

Cross-border planning notes

Songkran is Thailand’s nationwide celebration peak and a mid-April business slowdown. It can sit near Vietnam’s late-April Liberation Day / Labour Day travel wave.

Where these dates come from

This table covers nationwide holidays; temporary local holidays in Bangkok or other areas do not automatically apply nationwide. Dates follow government notices; check the references below for later announcements.

Primary references for verification

• Thailand MFA: Official holidays for 2026
• Thai Government: Bangkok special holiday on 16 October 2026

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