The Philippine Holiday Calendar: Which Weeks Stop the Country

The Philippine holiday calendar is unusually predictable, because the whole year is proclaimed in a single document roughly four months ahead. That makes avoiding the wrong week a purely administrative task.

What are the 2026 dates?

Ten regular holidays and eight special non-working days, plus one special working day, under Proclamation No. 1006 signed on 3 September 2025.

The special non-working days for 2026 are Chinese New Year on 17 February, Black Saturday on 4 April, Ninoy Aquino Day on 21 August, All Saints' Day on 1 November, All Souls' Day on 2 November, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on 8 December, Christmas Eve on 24 December and the Last Day of the Year on 31 December. The EDSA People Power anniversary on 25 February is a special working day — a third category that closes nothing.

Why does Holy Week hit so hard?

Because the government stacks it, and in 2026 it stacked it twice. Maundy Thursday and Good Friday are regular holidays, Black Saturday is a special non-working day — and Araw ng Kagitingan falls the following Thursday, 9 April, producing a second consecutive long weekend.

Easter Sunday is not itself a proclaimed holiday, which surprises people. The proclaimed run is Thursday to Saturday.

For 2027 the dates move earlier: Maundy Thursday 25 March, Good Friday 26 March, Black Saturday 27 March. The 2027 proclamation states its own reasoning for Black Saturday — that it "has been traditionally declared a special (non-working) day throughout the country, as the observance of Holy Week is one of the most cherished traditions of our predominantly Catholic people."

What does Undas do?

The same thing on a shorter scale, and 2026 is a mild year for it. All Saints' Day falls on Sunday 1 November and All Souls' Day on Monday 2 November, both special non-working days — producing a three-day Saturday-to-Monday weekend rather than a mid-week break.

Neither is a regular holiday, which is worth knowing for what stays open.

What is the legal distinction, and does it matter to a visitor?

It matters indirectly, through what stays open. The three categories sit on Republic Act No. 9492 of 24 July 2007, which amended the Administrative Code of 1987, as further amended by Republic Act No. 9849.

The labour department issues a separate wage advisory for each holiday, and the titles track the distinction precisely: one 2026 advisory covers "the regular holidays on 02 Apr (Maundy Thurs), 03 Apr (Good Friday), & 09 Apr (Araw ng Kagitingan), and special (non-working) day on 04 Apr (Black Saturday)" in the same document, treating the two categories separately.

How does the state respond to the surge?

By loosening the rules on transport operators rather than by adding capacity directly. The maritime authority's approach is the clearest documented example.

Its Holy Week relaxation order allows qualified operators holding a Certificate of Public Convenience, Provisional Authority or Special Permit to depart once maximum passenger or cargo capacity is reached, even before the scheduled departure time; to return immediately to congested ports after disembarking, with clearance from the coast guard and port authorities; and enforces a first-come, first-served policy. Where service remains insufficient, other qualified operators may be authorised to deploy additional vessels.

The scale is real but modest. For the December 2025 to January 2026 peak, the authority issued special permits to three passenger ships carrying more than 1,200 additional passengers, alongside a nationwide relaxation order running 16 December 2025 to 11 January 2026.

On the air side, the civil aeronautics board directs airlines during peak weeks to provide accurate flight information, inform passengers promptly of changes, honour rebooking, refund or compensation options, extend assistance including meals and accommodation, and deploy adequate personnel. It also sets the fuel surcharge level — Level 8 for 1 to 15 April 2026, the window containing the whole Holy Week cluster — and has moved from a monthly to a fifteen-day surcharge cycle.

So which dates should you avoid?

Three windows, in descending order of disruption.

• Holy Week — Thursday to Sunday, plus the following long weekend in years like 2026 where Araw ng Kagitingan lands adjacent
• Undas — 31 October to 2 November, when provincial cemeteries fill and city terminals empty
• The Christmas cluster — 24 December to 1 January, the longest stacked run of the year

Everything else is manageable. Chinese New Year, Ninoy Aquino Day and the Immaculate Conception close offices without emptying the transport system.

What this guide does not cover

No passenger counts appear here. The coast guard, statistics authority and transport department sites could not be reached, and the maritime authority publishes holiday measures without aggregate passenger totals — so nothing is claimed about how many people actually move during Holy Week or Undas, despite figures circulating widely.

Nor is there anything on additional-bus permits. The land transport franchising board's site is behind a bot check, so while its Special Permit instrument is confirmed to exist for trips outside an authorised route, no unit count for any recent holiday is stated.

The pay percentages for each holiday category are also absent. The labour advisories that contain them exist only as PDFs that could not be read, so this guide gives the legal categories and not the rates. And no official statement on which government offices, banks and businesses close on each category could be retrieved, so the closure guidance above is framed as a general pattern rather than a rule.

Finally, holiday proclamations can be amended and additional days added during the year. These dates were confirmed against the proclamations themselves on 17 September 2026; check the Official Gazette before booking around them.