Central Government Holidays 2027 (Closed and Restricted)

Central government holidays for 2027 were notified by the Department of Personnel and Training in Office Memorandum F. No. 12/2/2023-JCA dated 16 July 2026. The order fixes 17 gazetted or closed holidays, on which central government offices remain shut, and a supplementary list of 32 restricted holidays from which each employee may choose two in the year. The 17 closed holidays include the three national holidays: Republic Day, Independence Day and Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday.

This article gives the full 2027 list and what stands out about the year. The mechanics of the two kinds of holiday, closed and restricted, are set out in the companion article on restricted and gazetted holidays ; here the focus is on the 2027 dates. The headline feature of 2027 is that it is a weekend-heavy year: Independence Day falls on a Sunday, and four other closed holidays fall on a Saturday or Sunday, so the effective number of working-day holidays is lower than the count of 17 suggests.

The 17 closed (gazetted) holidays for 2027

The following are the closed holidays for central government offices in Delhi and New Delhi in 2027, in date order. On each of these days the office is shut and the holiday applies to every employee. The three national holidays are marked.

The dates of Id-ul-Fitr, Id-ul-Zuha, Muharram and Milad-un-Nabi are moon-dependent, and the order prints them as advance dates that may move by a day depending on the sighting of the moon. A striking feature of 2027 is that two closed holidays fall on the same date: both Independence Day and Milad-un-Nabi are shown on 15 August 2027, which is a Sunday.

The three national holidays in 2027

The three national holidays anchor the list and are compulsory across the whole country: Republic Day on Tuesday 26 January 2027, Independence Day on Sunday 15 August 2027, and Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday on Saturday 2 October 2027. They cannot be substituted or dropped, and every central government office observes them regardless of where it is.

An employee of the categories eligible for it who is required to perform duty on a national holiday may be paid a national holiday allowance for the day. In 2027 this matters more than usual for the essential-service staff who work on Independence Day, since the day is a Sunday and the duty falls on what would already have been a weekly off for other employees.

A weekend-heavy year

The count of 17 closed holidays overstates the working-day benefit in 2027, because five of them fall on a Saturday or Sunday. Independence Day is a Sunday (15 August 2027), Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday a Saturday (2 October 2027), Dussehra a Saturday (9 October 2027), Guru Nanak’s birthday a Sunday (14 November 2027) and Christmas Day a Saturday (25 December 2027). The central government does not grant a substituted holiday when a gazetted holiday falls on a weekend, so each of these coincides with a weekly off rather than adding a working-day holiday.

The flip side is that a few 2027 holidays sit well for a longer break. Diwali is a Friday (29 October 2027), giving a natural long weekend, and it is closely followed by the restricted holidays around it. Good Friday is a Friday (26 March 2027), Republic Day a Tuesday (26 January 2027) and Holi a Tuesday (23 March 2027), each of which an employee can extend into a long weekend with a single day of casual leave or a restricted holiday . The clustering of Dussehra and Diwali in October, with the restricted Dussehra days around them, makes the festival season the best stretch of the year to plan leave.

The restricted (optional) holidays for 2027

Alongside the closed holidays, the order lists 32 restricted holidays for 2027 in Annexure II, and each employee may avail two of them. A restricted holiday does not close the office; the individual employee who wishes to observe a particular festival takes the day off by using one of their two optional days. The list is deliberately long and varied so that employees of different faiths and regions can each find the occasions that matter to them.

A selection of the well-known restricted holidays for 2027, with their dates, is set out below. The full list of 32 is in Annexure II of the DoPT order.

The two-holiday limit is firm, unused restricted holidays do not carry forward, and no substitute is given if a chosen occasion falls on a weekly off. Because a restricted holiday is a holiday and not casual leave , it is not debited to any leave account, and it can be prefixed or suffixed to leave to make a longer break.

How the list is fixed and offices outside Delhi

The 17 closed holidays and the 32 restricted holidays are fixed by the DoPT order directly for the Central Secretariat and offices in Delhi and New Delhi. For central government offices outside Delhi, the order prescribes 14 compulsory holidays, which include the three national holidays, and leaves 3 more to be chosen from a list of 12 optional holidays, so that these offices also observe 17 closed holidays in 2027. The three optional closures are settled by the Central Government Employees Welfare Coordination Committee in the State capital, and once fixed they apply uniformly to all central government offices in that State and cannot be changed for the year.

The consequence is that the exact 2027 holiday list can differ from one State to another in three of its days, while the 14 compulsory holidays and the two restricted holidays are common. An employee outside Delhi confirms their office list from the order issued by the local coordinating committee, and holidays for Indian missions abroad are fixed under a separate DoPT order.

Planning leave around the 2027 holidays

The 2027 calendar rewards a little planning. Republic Day is a Tuesday (26 January 2027), so a single day of casual leave on Monday 25 January 2027 bridges it to the preceding weekend for a four-day break. Late March is unusually rich: Holi is a Tuesday (23 March 2027) and Good Friday a Friday (26 March 2027) in the same week, so two or three days of leave across that week cover a long stretch built on two closed holidays. Diwali is a Friday (29 October 2027) and gives a natural long weekend, and it sits in the middle of the October festival cluster with Dussehra and the restricted Dussehra days around it, which makes the second half of October the best time of the year to spend earned leave or to plan a trip on the leave travel concession .

The choice of the two restricted holidays is worth some thought in 2027. Because a restricted holiday gives no substitute when it falls on a weekly off, there is little value in choosing an occasion that lands on a Saturday or Sunday. An employee gets the most from the two optional days by picking festivals that fall on a working day and that are not already covered by a closed holiday, so that each optional day genuinely adds a day away from the office.

Holidays are not leave

The 2027 holidays, both closed and restricted, are holidays under the DoPT holiday policy, not leave under the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972 . They are not earned leave or any other leave head, and they are not credited to or debited from a leave account. A closed holiday or a weekly off that falls immediately before, after or within a spell of casual leave is not counted as part of the casual leave, and the same is true when a holiday is attached to a spell of earned leave , so an employee can anchor a break on the 2027 holidays without spending extra leave.

An employee who is required to attend office on a closed holiday in 2027 is ordinarily granted a compensatory off , a day off in lieu to be taken within a set period, so that the holiday is restored on another working day. The two restricted holidays and the compensatory off together give an employee some flexibility around the fixed closures.

Applicability

The 2027 holiday list applies to central government offices and their employees, fixed by DoPT Office Memorandum F. No. 12/2/2023-JCA dated 16 July 2026, with the three national holidays compulsory everywhere, 17 closed holidays in all, and two restricted holidays for each employee. Offices outside Delhi reach the same total through the Welfare Coordination Committee mechanism, and Indian missions abroad follow the separate order. State government employees and the staff of autonomous bodies follow the holiday lists fixed by their own governments or managements, which often track the central list but are issued separately. An employee confirms the holidays that apply to their own office from the relevant 2027 order.

Related Articles

• Restricted and gazetted holidays
• Central government holidays
• National holiday allowance
• Compensatory off
• Central Government Employees Welfare Coordination Committee
• Casual leave
• Earned leave
• Half pay leave
• Leave travel concession
• Special casual leave
• CCS (Leave) Rules 1972
• Leave encashment
• Joining time
• Department of Personnel and Training
• Central government employees in India
• 7th Central Pay Commission

External references

• Department of Personnel and Training, Holidays to be observed in Central Government Offices during 2027 (PDF)
• Department of Personnel and Training
• Department of Personnel and Training, office memoranda and orders

References

1. Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum F. No. 12/2/2023-JCA dated 16 July 2026, “Holidays to be observed in Central Government Offices during the year 2027”, Establishment (JCA) Section (Annexure I, 17 closed holidays including the three national holidays; Annexure II, 32 restricted holidays; each employee may avail two restricted holidays in the year).
2. The three national holidays for 2027: Republic Day, 26 January 2027 (Tuesday); Independence Day, 15 August 2027 (Sunday); Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, 2 October 2027 (Saturday), compulsory for all central government offices.
3. Department of Personnel and Training annual holiday Office Memorandum: offices outside Delhi observe 14 compulsory holidays and 3 chosen from 12 optional holidays, the three fixed by the Central Government Employees Welfare Coordination Committee in the State capital and applied uniformly across the State; holidays for Indian missions abroad fixed under a separate order.
4. The dates of Id-ul-Fitr (10 March 2027), Id-ul-Zuha or Bakrid (17 May 2027), Muharram (16 June 2027) and Milad-un-Nabi (15 August 2027) are moon-dependent advance dates that may shift by a day subject to the sighting of the moon, as noted in the order.