Holiday Calendar – Importance and meaning

This Holiday Calendar glossary covers-

• Holiday calendar– Meaning
• Holiday calendar- Importance
• 2025 Holiday Calendar
• 2024 Holiday Calendar
• 2023 Holiday Calendar

Let’s look at them successively, one at a time.

Holiday Calendar- Meaning

Holiday calendar consists of a list of holidays in a given year. It comprises national holidays, religious holidays or any other permanent date marked as a holiday.  In the calendar, holidays are classified  into restricted, floating, observance, season and gazetted holidays.

Holiday Calendar Importance

It is part of the HR duty to make a yearly holiday calendar during the start of a financial year. It is mandatory for the employer to give its employees off days on national holidays that may or may not fall on a weekend. Every company irrespective of their industry type  has to grant specified holiday’s ordered by the government except for media, news and healthcare.

2025 Holiday Calendar

Date	Name	Type
1 Jan	New Year’s Day	Gazetted Holiday
26 Jan	Republic Day	Gazetted Holiday
14 Mar	Holi	Gazetted Holiday
31 Mar	Id-ul-Fitr	Gazetted Holiday
10 Apr	Mahavir Jayanti	Gazetted Holiday
18 Apr	Good Friday	Gazetted Holiday
12 May	Buddha Purnima	Gazetted Holiday
7 Jun	Id-ul-Zuha (Bakrid)	Gazetted Holiday
6 Jul	Muharram	Gazetted Holiday
15 Aug	Independence Day	Gazetted Holiday
5 Sep	Milad-un-Nabi (Prophet’s Birthday)	Gazetted Holiday
2 Oct	Mahatma Gandhi’s Birthday	Gazetted Holiday
2 Oct	Dussehra	Gazetted Holiday
20 Oct	Diwali (Deepavali)	Gazetted Holiday
25 Dec	Christmas Day	Gazetted Holiday

2024 Holiday Calendar

While setting your leave policy or releasing the holiday calendar, referring to the respective year’s holiday calendar released by the government is imperative. This 2024 holiday calendar consists of all the holidays in India classified into Restricted, Gazetted, Observance, and season, and central government holiday. So, make sure you look at this 2024 calendar with holidays before releasing the same on your HR software portal.

Date	Name	Type
1 Jan	New Year’s Day	Gazetted Holiday
26 Jan	Republic Day	Gazetted Holiday
21 Mar	Nawroz	Gazetted Holiday
25 Mar	Holi	Gazetted Holiday
11 Apr	Id-ul-fitr	Gazetted Holiday
21 Apr	Mahavir Jayanti	Gazetted Holiday
23 May	Buddha Purnima	Gazetted Holiday
17 Jun	Id-ul-Zuha (Bakrid)	Gazetted Holiday
17 Jul	Muharram	Gazetted Holiday
15 Aug	Independence Day	Gazetted Holiday
26 Aug	Janmashtami	Gazetted Holiday
16 Sep	Milad-un-Nabi (Prophet’s Birthday)	Gazetted Holiday
02 Oct	Mahatma Gandhi’s Birthday	Gazetted Holiday
03 Oct	Iraqi Independence Day	Holiday Holiday
12 Oct	Dussehra	Gazetted Holiday
31 Oct	Diwali	Gazetted Holiday
25 Dec	Christmas Day	Gazetted Holiday

2023 Holiday Calendar

Date	Name	Type
26 Jan	Republic Day	Gazetted Holiday
8 Mar	Holi	Gazetted Holiday
30 Mar	Ram Navami	Gazetted Holiday
4 Apr	Mahavir Jayanti	Gazetted Holiday
7 Apr	Good Friday	Gazetted Holiday
22 Apr	Id-ul-Fitr	Gazetted Holiday
5 May	Buddha Purnima	Gazetted Holiday
29 Jun	Id-ul-Zuha (Bakrid)	Gazetted Holiday
29 Jul	Muharram	Gazetted Holiday
15 Aug	Independence Day	Gazetted Holiday
7 Sep	Janmashtami (Vaishnava)	Gazetted Holiday
28 Sep	Milad-un-Nabi (Prophet’s Birthday)	Gazetted Holiday
2 Oct	Mahatma Gandhi’s Birthday	Gazetted Holiday
24 Oct	Dussehra (Vijay Dashami)	Gazetted Holiday
12 Nov	Diwali (Deepavali)	Gazetted Holiday
27 Nov	Guru Nanak’s Birthday	Gazetted Holiday
25 Dec	Christmas Day	Gazetted Holiday