How to Find Public Holidays for Any Country — and Why It Matters
A project manager books a client call for a Tuesday in early June without checking the calendar. The client is based in the United Kingdom. The call gets a polite decline: it's the Spring Bank Holiday. The call moves, but the impression is already made — they didn't check.
International public holidays are one of those things that catch people out repeatedly, especially as remote work has made cross-country collaboration the norm rather than the exception. WorldTimeHub's public holiday finder covers 60+ countries and lets you check any country's holiday calendar instantly.
Why public holidays are more complicated than they look
A few things make international public holidays genuinely tricky to track:
- Dates change year to year: Many holidays are calculated rather than fixed. Easter falls on a different Sunday every year based on lunar calendar rules, dragging Good Friday and Easter Monday with it. Some countries observe moveable feasts tied to their own religious or civic calendars.
- Substitute days: When a public holiday falls on a weekend, many countries observe a substitute weekday instead. A holiday on Saturday might be observed on the following Monday. The rules for this differ by country and sometimes by the type of holiday.
- Regional variation: Within a country, different states, provinces, or regions may have their own holidays that don't apply nationally. Australia is a clear example — Melbourne Cup Day is a public holiday in Victoria but not in other states. India has national holidays plus dozens of state-level ones.
- Half-days and special observances: Some countries mark certain days as half-day closures rather than full public holidays. These often don't appear in standard calendar tools.
Who actually needs this information
The short answer is anyone who works across borders. In practice, that's a wide group:
- Distributed teams: Scheduling sprint reviews, all-hands calls, or client meetings without knowing when your overseas colleagues have a day off leads to missed attendees and rescheduled meetings.
- Freelancers with international clients: Setting delivery deadlines that land on a public holiday means the client can't review the work on time, stalling the whole project.
- Procurement and logistics: Ordering goods from or shipping to another country? If their factories or ports are closed for a week-long national holiday, your timeline needs to reflect that.
- HR and payroll: Paying employees correctly on or around public holidays requires knowing which days apply in each jurisdiction, particularly for overtime or penalty rate calculations.
- Travel planning: Visiting another country during a major national holiday means closed attractions, packed transport, and sometimes higher accommodation prices — or a more vibrant cultural experience, depending on the holiday.
Some holidays that commonly surprise people
A few examples from different regions that are worth knowing if you work with these countries:
- Golden Week, Japan (late April–early May): A cluster of four national holidays within seven days. Most businesses close or run on reduced capacity. If you're waiting on a Japanese supplier or partner, expect delays during this period.
- Chinese New Year (January–February, exact date varies): Factories across China close for one to two weeks. This is arguably the most disruptive international holiday for global supply chains and is a common source of missed deadlines for importers who don't plan around it.
- Thanksgiving in the USA vs Canada: Americans observe Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. Canadians observe it on the second Monday of October — more than six weeks earlier. Getting the country wrong when planning around this one has obvious consequences.
- Anzac Day, Australia and New Zealand (25 April): A national day of remembrance observed in both countries. It often surprises people in other countries who assume Australia and New Zealand share few fixed cultural observances.
Tip: When planning project timelines with international stakeholders, add each country's public holidays to your calendar at the start of the quarter. Discovering a holiday mid-sprint is far more disruptive than accounting for it in the initial plan.
How to look up holidays with WorldTimeHub
Open WorldTimeHub
Go to edgeworksapps.com/worldtimehub and select the Holiday Finder section from the navigation.
Select a country
Choose your target country from the dropdown. WorldTimeHub covers 60+ countries including Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Germany, India, France, Singapore, New Zealand, and many more.
Choose a year
Select the year you want to view. This is particularly useful for forward planning — confirming next year's holiday dates while you're building project timelines or scheduling annual leave.
Review the full list
The tool displays the complete list of public holidays for that country and year, with dates and holiday names. Use this to identify any conflicts with your planned meetings, deadlines, or deliveries.
Check public holidays now
60+ countries, any year — instant, no sign-up required.
Open WorldTimeHub →