A gazetted holiday is a day the government formally notifies as a public holiday, closing its own offices. For central government offices the list comes each year from the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT); state governments issue their own lists, and those state notifications also decide when banks shut. Private employers are not bound by the DoPT list itself, but they build their holiday calendars around it.

How the central list is built

The 2026 list was issued by DoPT office memorandum F.No. 12/2/2023-JCA dated 3 July 2025, about six months ahead of the year, which is the usual pattern. It works in layers:

• Three national holidays: Republic Day (26 January), Independence Day (15 August) and Mahatma Gandhi’s Birthday (2 October). Every list treats these as compulsory.
• Offices outside Delhi: 14 compulsory holidays, the three national days plus festivals such as Diwali, Christmas, Good Friday, Id-ul-Fitr and Guru Nanak’s Birthday, and three more chosen from a list of 12 options by the central government employees’ welfare coordination committee in each state capital.
• Offices in Delhi: a separate closed list for the capital, where DoPT itself picks the three variable days.
• Restricted holidays: on top of the closed list, each central employee picks two from a longer optional list. The restricted holiday page explains how companies copy that idea.

Two rules catch people out. No substitute day is given when a festival falls on a Sunday or another non-working day (Diwali 2026 falls on a Sunday), and central government industrial and commercial establishments follow a different cap, observing up to 16 holidays with the three national days compulsory.

Bank holidays and the Negotiable Instruments Act

Bank closures come from section 25 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, which treats Sundays and days notified by the government in the Official Gazette as public holidays for cheques and bills. The Home Ministry long ago delegated that notifying power to state governments, which is why a bank holiday in Kolkata may be a working day in Pune. For payroll this matters directly: if salary credit or a statutory payment date lands on a state bank holiday, plan the transfer a working day early using the compliance calendar.

Frequently asked questions

Must a private company give every gazetted holiday?

No. Private employers follow their state’s shops and establishments law and, in states such as Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, separate national and festival holidays Acts for industrial establishments. These set a minimum number of paid holidays, always including national days, and the employer picks the rest.

What if an employee works on a declared holiday?

State laws commonly require extra pay or a substitute day off, and the rate differs by state and Act. Many companies simply grant comp-off; check your state’s rule before writing it into policy.

Can a state declare a holiday at short notice?

Yes. States notify ad hoc holidays, for example for polling days or local events, sometimes with little warning. Payroll should re-run working-day counts when that happens.

Holiday counts change the per-day value in pay calculations; see how in the working days calculator.