Festival & Holidays Calendar

Browse and coordinate major Indian religious festivals, national events, and public gazetted holidays across 2025, 2026, and 2027. Filter by religion, customize holiday categories based on your specific state, check real-time countdowns to upcoming days, export schedules to your personal device calendar (Google/Apple), and build a custom leave schedule log.

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⏳ Upcoming Major Festivals

Understanding India's Holiday Categorizations

India is a land of vast cultural and religious diversity, which is reflected in how national and regional holidays are declared. The Government of India, through the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), classifies holidays into two major groups for public administration and banking systems:

  • Gazetted Holidays (Compulsory Holidays): These are mandatory public holidays observed nationwide by government departments, courts, public sector undertakings, and schools. They include three national days of civic significance—Republic Day (January 26), Independence Day (August 15), and Mahatma Gandhi's Birthday (October 2)—alongside major religious celebrations such as Diwali, Holi, Good Friday, Eid-ul-Fitr, and Guru Nanak's Birthday.
  • Restricted Holidays (Optional Holidays): These are culturally or regionally significant festivals that are not mandatory public closures. Under government guidelines, employees are typically entitled to choose a limited number (often two) of optional holidays from this list annually to observe regional or religious traditions of personal importance, such as Makar Sankranti, Karwa Chauth, or Basant Panchami.

State-Specific and Local Holiday Coordination

Because local culture varies dramatically across the 28 states and 8 union territories of India, the Central Government Employees Welfare Co-ordination Committees (CGEWCC) customize the central list to align with local requirements. For instance:

  • Harvest Festivals: Makar Sankranti transitions into a multi-day Gazetted public holiday known as Pongal in Tamil Nadu and Bhogali Bihu in Assam.
  • Regional Celebrations: Major festivals like Ganesh Chaturthi are designated as compulsory public holidays in Maharashtra, whereas Durga Puja/Dussehra celebrations feature extended public holidays in West Bengal. Similarly, Onam serves as Kerala's state harvest holiday.

Most Hindu and Islamic festivals follow lunar or astronomical cycles (such as the solar calendar or lunar sight confirmations), resulting in date transitions of 10 to 11 days backward relative to the Gregorian calendar year-over-year.