Central Government Holidays 2027

Central government holidays for 2027 are fixed by Office Memorandum F. No. 12/2/2023-JCA dated 16 July 2026, issued by the Department of Personnel and Training through its Pers. Policy (JCA) Section. The order gives 17 gazetted or closed holidays for administrative offices in Delhi and New Delhi, on which those 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 on Tuesday 26 January 2027, Independence Day on Sunday 15 August 2027 and Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday on Saturday 2 October 2027.

Five of the 17 closed holidays fall on a Saturday or a Sunday in 2027, a sixth shares a date with one of them, and paragraph 3.2 of the order gives no substitute day in either case. The effective count of working-day closures is therefore 11, not 17, and the loss falls on two of the three national holidays. That single feature shapes how the 2027 calendar is best used, and it is the reason the choice of the two restricted holidays matters more in 2027 than in a year where the festivals sit mid-week.

The order does not stop at Delhi. Paragraph 2 names 14 holidays that central government offices outside Delhi observe compulsorily, paragraph 3.1 leaves three more to a State-level committee choosing from a list of 12, paragraph 7 caps industrial, commercial and trading establishments at 16, and paragraph 9 sends Indian missions abroad to a separate 2002 order. This article sets out the full 2027 lists, the arrangements for each of those categories, and what the year looks like in practice. The mechanics that do not change from year to year, the difference between a closed and a restricted holiday and how each is administered, are in the companion article on restricted and gazetted holidays.

The 17 closed holidays for 2027

Annexure I to DoPT Office Memorandum F. No. 12/2/2023-JCA dated 16 July 2026 lists 17 closed holidays for central government administrative offices in Delhi and New Delhi in 2027. On each of these days the office is shut and the holiday applies to every employee, without any application or sanction. The Saka dates are reproduced from the order, which runs across two Saka years: Saka Era 1948 to 22 March 2027, and Saka Era 1949 from 23 March 2027.

Two entries in the 2027 list share a single date. Independence Day and Milad-un-Nabi are both shown on Sunday 15 August 2027, and paragraph 3.2 of the order covers exactly this case: no substitute holiday is allowed where more than one festival falls on the same day. The list therefore carries 17 entries but delivers 16 distinct dates, of which 11 are working days.

The three national holidays in 2027

Republic Day on Tuesday 26 January 2027, Independence Day on Sunday 15 August 2027 and Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday on Saturday 2 October 2027 are the three national holidays, and they are the only occasions the order makes compulsory for every central government office in the country. Paragraph 2 puts them at the head of the list observed compulsorily outside Delhi, paragraph 7 makes them compulsory for industrial and commercial establishments, and paragraph 9 requires Indian missions abroad to include them before selecting any holiday of their own. They cannot be substituted, dropped or exchanged for another occasion.

Two of the three fall on a weekend in 2027, which is the harshest weekend arithmetic the national holidays can produce short of all three landing on an off day. Only Republic Day, a Tuesday, adds a working-day closure.

An employee in the eligible non-gazetted categories who is required to perform duty on a national holiday draws the National Holiday Allowance for the day. The 7th Central Pay Commission set it at Rs. 384 a day for Levels 1 and 2, Rs. 477 for Levels 3 to 5 and Rs. 630 for Level 6 and above, and as a fixed-rupee allowance it rose by 25% when dearness allowance reached 50% on 1 January 2024, to about Rs. 480, Rs. 596 and Rs. 788 a day. The largest body of recipients is on the railways. In 2027 this matters more than usual for essential-service staff working on Independence Day, because the day is a Sunday and the duty falls on what would already have been a weekly off for colleagues in administrative offices.

The 32 restricted holidays for 2027

Annexure II to the order lists 32 restricted holidays for 2027, and paragraph 1 allows each employee to avail any two of them. A restricted holiday does not close the office. The individual employee who wishes to observe a particular festival takes that day off by spending one of their two optional days, while the office and their colleagues work normally. The list is deliberately long so that employees of different faiths and regions can each find the occasions that matter to them.

Ten of the 32 fall on a Saturday or a Sunday, leaving 22 on a working day. The two-day limit is firm, unused restricted holidays lapse at the end of 2027, and paragraph 3.2 gives no substitute when 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 may be prefixed or suffixed to leave to build a longer break.

Paragraph 4 of the order confines Annexure II to offices in Delhi and New Delhi. The Coordination Committees at the State capitals draw up their own restricted-holiday lists reflecting occasions of local importance, subject to one binding condition: the nine optional occasions left over after the three variable closed holidays are chosen under paragraph 3.1 must also appear in the State restricted-holiday list.

Closed, restricted and optional holidays compared

The 2027 order uses three distinct categories, and they are frequently confused because all three are called holidays. The table below sets them against each other on the points that decide what an employee actually gets.

The practical consequence is that an employee outside Delhi has the same total of 17 closed days as a colleague in the Central Secretariat, but three of those days may be different occasions, and the restricted list available to them is drawn up locally rather than being Annexure II.

Offices outside Delhi: 14 compulsory and 3 chosen from 12

Paragraph 2 of DoPT Office Memorandum F. No. 12/2/2023-JCA dated 16 July 2026 names 14 holidays that central government administrative offices outside Delhi and New Delhi observe compulsorily in 2027: Republic Day, Independence Day, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, Buddha Purnima, Christmas Day, Dussehra (Vijaya Dashmi), Diwali (Deepavali), Good Friday, Guru Nanak’s birthday, Id-ul-Fitr, Id-ul-Zuha, Mahavir Jayanti, Muharram and Prophet Mohammad’s birthday (Id-e-Milad). Set against the Delhi list of 17, the three occasions absent from this compulsory set are Holi, Ram Navami and Janmashtami.

Paragraph 3.1 supplies the remaining three from a list of 12 optional holidays: an additional day for Dussehra, Holi, Janamashtami (Vaishnav), Ram Navami, Maha Shivratri, Ganesh Chaturthi or Vinayak Chaturthi, Makar Sankranti, Rath Yatra, Onam, Pongal, Sri Panchami or Basant Panchami, and a twelfth composite entry grouping Vishu, Vaisakhi, Vaisakhadi, Bahag Bihu, Meshadi, Ugadi, Chaitra Sukladi, Cheti Chand, Gudi Padava, 1st Navratra, Navroz, Chhath Puja and Karva Chauth. The Central Government Employees Welfare Coordination Committee in the State capital makes the choice, in consultation with the Coordination Committees elsewhere in the State where necessary.

Two conditions bind that choice. The final list applies uniformly to all central government offices within the State, so a ministry cannot depart from it for its own offices, and no change can be carried out after it is notified. Paragraph 3.1 also records that for Delhi and New Delhi the equivalent three holidays are selected by the Department of Personnel and Training itself, which is how Holi, Ram Navami and Janmashtami reach the Annexure I list.

An employee outside Delhi therefore confirms the operative 2027 list from the order issued by the local coordinating committee rather than from Annexure I, and the difference will be at most three days.

Weekend losses in 2027

Five of the 17 closed holidays fall on a Saturday or a Sunday in 2027: Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday on Saturday 2 October, Dussehra on Saturday 9 October, Christmas Day on Saturday 25 December, Independence Day on Sunday 15 August and Guru Nanak’s birthday on Sunday 14 November. Milad-un-Nabi shares 15 August with Independence Day, which is a sixth entry delivering no separate day.

Paragraph 3.2 of the order states that no substitute holiday should be allowed where a festival holiday initially declared subsequently falls on a weekly off or any other non-working day, or where more than one festival falls on the same day. Each of those six entries therefore coincides with a day the employee was not working anyway. Eleven working-day closures survive: Republic Day on 26 January, Id-ul-Fitr on 10 March, Holi on 23 March, Good Friday on 26 March, Ram Navami on 15 April, Mahavir Jayanti on 19 April, Id-ul-Zuha on 17 May, Budha Purnima on 20 May, Muharram on 16 June, Janmashtami on 25 August and Diwali on 29 October.

The distribution is uneven across the year. January to June carries nine of the 11 working-day closures, and the second half of 2027 carries two: Janmashtami on Wednesday 25 August and Diwali on Friday 29 October. Every closed holiday between 26 August and 31 December 2027 other than Diwali falls on a Saturday or a Sunday, which makes the festival quarter unusually thin for an employee who does not spend leave on it.

Diwali and the Naraka Chaturdasi substitution

Paragraph 6 of the 2027 order records that Diwali falls on Friday 29 October 2027, Kartika 07, and permits a State-level substitution. In certain States the practice is to celebrate the occasion a day in advance, on Naraka Chaturdasi Day, and the order states that there is no objection if the Deepavali holiday is observed on Naraka Chaturdasi Day in place of Deepavali Day in central government offices in a State, provided that in that State that day alone is declared as a compulsory Diwali holiday for State Government offices.

Two limits are worth stating plainly. The substitution moves the closure from Friday 29 October 2027 to Thursday 28 October 2027; it does not add a second holiday, and Naraka Chaturdasi appears separately as restricted holiday 26 in Annexure II precisely because it is not a closed holiday in its own right. The condition is also strict: the State Government must have declared Naraka Chaturdasi alone as its compulsory Diwali holiday, so an office cannot elect the earlier date on local preference.

Moon-dependent dates and short-notice changes

Four of the 17 closed holidays for 2027 carry advance dates that may move: Id-ul-Fitr on 10 March 2027, Id-ul-Zuha or Bakrid on 17 May 2027, Muharram on 16 June 2027 and Id-e-Milad on 15 August 2027. Each depends on the sighting of the moon, and the dates printed in Annexure I are the astronomical projections.

Paragraph 5.1 places the decision for offices in Delhi and New Delhi with the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, after ascertaining the position from the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi and the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Special Branch, Delhi Police. Paragraph 5.2 authorises the Central Government Employees Welfare Coordination Committees at the State capitals to make the same change outside Delhi, based on the decision of the concerned State Government or Union Territory.

Paragraph 5.3 deals with the practical problem that such a change may have to be declared at very short notice. It provides that the announcement may be made through the Press Information Bureau, television, All India Radio or newspapers, and that Heads of Department and Heads of Office may act on such an announcement without waiting for a formal order. An office that closes on the announced date is acting under the order itself, not in anticipation of one.

Industrial, commercial and trading establishments

Paragraph 7 of the 2027 order sets a separate ceiling for central government organisations that include industrial, commercial and trading establishments: up to 16 holidays in the year, against the 17 observed by administrative offices. The three national holidays, Republic Day, Independence Day and Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, are compulsory within that 16.

The remaining occasions are determined by the establishment or organisation itself for 2027, and the only condition attached is paragraph 3.2, so an establishment that picks a festival which then falls on a weekly off gets no substitute day. This is the provision under which production units, workshops and departmental undertakings run a holiday calendar that differs from the Annexure I list applying to the ministry that controls them.

Union Territories, banks and Indian missions abroad

Three categories of office sit outside both the Delhi list and the State committee mechanism, and the 2027 order disposes of each in a single paragraph.

Paragraph 8 provides that Union Territory Administrations decide their list of holidays under the instructions issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, not by the Department of Personnel and Training. Paragraph 10 provides that holidays for banks are regulated by the extant instructions of the Department of Financial Services in the Ministry of Finance. A bank holiday and a central government office holiday are therefore fixed by different authorities under different instruments, and a date that closes one need not close the other.

Paragraph 9 sends Indian missions abroad to DoPT Office Memorandum No. 12/5/2002-JCA dated 17 December 2002. Under that arrangement a mission selects 10 holidays of its own, but only after including in its list the three national holidays, Prophet Mohammad’s birthday (Id-e-Milad), Dussehra (Vijaya Dashmi), Guru Nanak’s birthday and Christmas Day among the compulsory holidays falling on days of weekly off. A mission therefore works to a shorter list than a domestic office, built around local conditions in the host country.

Working on a closed holiday in 2027

An employee required to attend office on one of the 17 closed holidays does not lose the day. They are ordinarily granted a compensatory off, a day in lieu to be taken within a set period, so the closure is restored on another working day. Compensatory off is distinct from leave: it is earned by working on a day that should have been off, and it is availed as a substitute day rather than debited to any leave account.

For the three national holidays the position is different, because the eligible non-gazetted categories draw the National Holiday Allowance for performing duty on the day. Since the 25% enhancement that followed dearness allowance reaching 50% on 1 January 2024, the rate stands at about Rs. 480 a day in Levels 1 and 2, about Rs. 596 in Levels 3 to 5 and about Rs. 788 in Level 6 and above, a flat amount for the day irrespective of the hours worked. Whether the same day also attracts overtime allowance or night duty allowance for hours beyond the normal shift is settled by the overtime rules of the establishment, not by the holiday order.

Holidays are not leave

The 2027 holidays, closed and restricted alike, are holidays under the DoPT holiday policy and not leave under the CCS (Leave) Rules 1972. They are not earned leave, half pay leave, commuted leave or any other leave head, and nothing is credited to or debited from the leave account when one is availed. This is the reason a restricted holiday costs an employee nothing from the two casual leave days in a month or the eight in a year.

A closed holiday or a weekly off falling immediately before, after or within a spell of casual leave is not counted as part of that casual leave, and the same treatment applies when a holiday is attached to a spell of earned leave. An employee can therefore anchor a break on the 2027 closed holidays without spending extra leave, and the same combination works with child care leave, special casual leave and leave not due.

The distinction also decides what happens at retirement. Unused holidays have no cash value and are not encashed, unlike earned leave, which is paid out under the leave encashment rules up to 300 days.

Planning leave around the 2027 dates

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. That is the cheapest long weekend in the 2027 calendar.

Late March is the richest stretch of the year. Holi is a Tuesday, 23 March 2027, and Good Friday a Friday, 26 March 2027, in the same week, with the restricted holiday Holika Dahan on Monday 22 March 2027 available in between. An employee who spends one restricted holiday on 22 March and two days of casual leave on 24 and 25 March covers 20 to 28 March 2027, nine consecutive days, on two days of leave.

Diwali on Friday 29 October 2027 gives a natural long weekend and sits in the middle of the October cluster, with the three Dussehra restricted holidays on 6, 7 and 8 October and Karaka Chaturthi on Monday 18 October. The second half of October is the best window in 2027 for a longer absence on earned leave or a trip on the leave travel concession, because the surrounding closed holidays reduce the number of leave days the trip consumes.

The choice of the two restricted holidays repays some thought in 2027. Ten of the 32 fall on a weekend and no substitute is given for them, so those 10 are worth nothing as time away from the office. Twenty-two fall on a working day, and of those, the ones that pair with an existing closed holiday or a weekend, Holika Dahan on Monday 22 March, the Dussehra days of 6 to 8 October, Karaka Chaturthi on Monday 18 October and Christmas Eve on Friday 24 December, convert one optional day into a break of three days or more.

Applicability

The 2027 holiday list applies to central government offices and their employees under DoPT Office Memorandum F. No. 12/2/2023-JCA dated 16 July 2026. Administrative offices in Delhi and New Delhi observe the 17 closed holidays of Annexure I, every employee may avail two of the 32 restricted holidays in Annexure II, and the three national holidays are compulsory everywhere. Offices outside Delhi reach 17 through 14 compulsory holidays plus three fixed by the State Welfare Coordination Committee; industrial, commercial and trading establishments observe up to 16; Union Territory Administrations follow Ministry of Home Affairs instructions; banks follow the Department of Financial Services; and Indian missions abroad select 10 under the 2002 order.

State government employees and the staff of autonomous bodies follow the holiday lists fixed by their own governments or managements. Those lists often track the central list but are issued separately and can differ in both the occasions and the count, so an employee outside the central government confirms the holidays that apply from the order issued by their own employer.

Related Articles

• Restricted and gazetted holidays
• Central government holidays
• National holiday allowance
• Compensatory off
• Central Government Employees Welfare Coordination Committee
• Ministry of Home Affairs
• Department of Financial Services
• Department of Personnel and Training
• Casual leave
• Earned leave
• Half pay leave
• Commuted leave
• Leave not due
• Extraordinary leave
• Child care leave
• Child adoption leave
• Maternity leave
• Paternity leave
• Special casual leave
• Study leave
• Hospital leave
• Quarantine leave
• Vacation department leave
• Leave travel concession
• Leave encashment
• Joining time
• CCS (Leave) Rules 1972
• Overtime allowance
• Night duty allowance
• Dearness allowance
• Railway employees
• 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
• Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions
• Ministry of Home Affairs
• Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance

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”, Pers. Policy (JCA) Section, GPOA-3, Netaji Nagar, New Delhi.
2. Same Office Memorandum, Annexure I: 17 closed holidays for administrative offices at Delhi and New Delhi, including the three national holidays, Republic Day (26 January 2027), Independence Day (15 August 2027) and Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday (2 October 2027).
3. Same Office Memorandum, Annexure II: 32 restricted holidays for offices at Delhi and New Delhi; paragraph 1 allows each employee to avail two of them.
4. Same Office Memorandum, paragraph 2: the 14 holidays observed compulsorily by central government administrative offices outside Delhi and New Delhi.
5. Same Office Memorandum, paragraph 3.1: the 12 optional holidays from which three are chosen by the Central Government Employees Welfare Coordination Committee in the State capital, the final list applying uniformly across the State with no change permissible thereafter.
6. Same Office Memorandum, paragraph 3.2: no substitute holiday where a declared festival holiday falls on a weekly off or other non-working day, or where more than one festival falls on the same day.
7. Same Office Memorandum, paragraph 4: the nine optional occasions left over after the three variable holidays are chosen must also be included in the State restricted-holiday list.
8. Same Office Memorandum, paragraphs 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3: moon-dependent changes to Id-ul-Fitr, Id-ul-Zuha, Muharram and Id-e-Milad, and announcement at short notice through the Press Information Bureau, television, All India Radio or newspapers.
9. Same Office Memorandum, paragraph 6: Diwali on Friday 29 October 2027 and the Naraka Chaturdasi substitution in States where that day alone is the compulsory Diwali holiday for State Government offices.
10. Same Office Memorandum, paragraphs 7 to 10: up to 16 holidays for industrial, commercial and trading establishments; Union Territory Administrations under Ministry of Home Affairs instructions; Indian missions abroad under DoPT Office Memorandum No. 12/5/2002-JCA dated 17 December 2002; banks under Department of Financial Services instructions.