Nepal Public Holiday Calendar 2083/84
Every day in the Government of Nepal's 2083 holiday notice, with the AD date beside the Bikram Sambat one, and the part no other calendar shows: which 13 of them your company actually has to grant.
- From the Nepal Rajpatra
- BS and AD dates
- Labour Act 2074 sections cited
- Nothing leaves your browser
The government's list against your obligation
- In the 2083 notice
- 34 days
- What the Act obliges
- 13 days
- Dashain, from Ashoj 31
- 7 days
- Dashain 2083 begins
- Sat, 17 Oct 2026
The 2083 notice, day by day
This notice binds government offices, not you. It is the Home Ministry's list for public bodies. A private employer owes the count in Section 41(1) and picks the days under Section 41(2), which is why two compliant Nepali companies publish different calendars. Banks follow Nepal Rastra Bank's own list, and a province may add up to six days of its own. Anyone required to work on a day you have granted is owed substitute leave within twenty-one days under Section 42(2).
From the Gazette to Your Company
The government publishes the days. The Labour Act sets the count. Turning one into the other is a decision an employer has to make and record, and this is the sequence it runs in.
- 1
Set the weekly rest day
Section 40 requires one day of weekly leave. Most Nepali companies rest on Saturday; some add Sunday as a benefit. This matters more than it looks, because a public holiday landing on a rest day gives nobody a day they did not already have.
- 2
Tick the days you will observe
The full notice starts selected. Untick what your company does not close for. Section 41(2) is what makes this legitimate: the Act fixes the number of days and leaves the choice of days to the regulator of the enterprise, or to the employer where there is none.
- 3
Check the count against the floor
The counter compares your selection with Section 41(1): 13 days, or 14 for a female employee. Falling below it is the one outcome that is not a choice. Going above it is normal and is what most established employers do.
- 4
Read what it costs in working days
The last two figures are the ones a spreadsheet of festival dates cannot give you: how many chosen days are absorbed by the weekly rest day, and how many working days the year has left once both are taken out.
Last updated · Reviewed by Rajendra Regmi, Co-founder
The Gazette Is Not Your Obligation
Nearly every Nepali HR article treats the government's holiday notice as the employee's entitlement. They are separate documents that do separate jobs, and the difference is about three working weeks a year.
| Labour Act 2074 | The 2083 notice | |
|---|---|---|
| What it fixes | How many days | Which days |
| Public leave | 13 days a year, 14 for a female employee | About 34 days for a general employee |
| Who it binds | Every employer in Nepal | Government offices and public bodies |
| Who chooses the dates | The regulator, or the employer (41(2)) | Already chosen |
| The extra day for women | International Women Labour Day | Teej, and Jitiya |
| Where it is written | Sections 40 to 42 | Nepal Rajpatra, Khanda 75, Sankhya 67, Bhag 5 |
A private company that closes for the whole notice is granting roughly 21 days a year beyond the statutory floor. That is a perfectly legitimate benefit, and it should be a decision rather than an accident of copying the government list.
Six Things the Festival Lists Never Say
Each of these changes either a payroll figure or a compliance position, and each is stated wrongly somewhere prominent.
13 is a floor, not a list
Section 41(1) gives every labour 13 days of paid public leave a year including May Day. It names no festival. Section 41(2) then leaves the days themselves to the regulator that governs the enterprise, or to the employer where none does. This is why two fully compliant Nepali companies publish different holiday calendars, and why "the official holiday list" is not a thing a private employer can be audited against.
The women's extra day is not Teej
Section 41(1) makes it 14 days for a female labour, and it names the extra one: International Women Labour Day. The 2083 notice does something different, granting International Women's Day to everyone and listing Teej and Jitiya as the women-only days. Both are defensible; treating Teej as the statutory fourteenth day is not, and that error is baked into more than one Nepali HR system.
A holiday on the rest day is not a day off
Four of the notice's nationwide days fall on a Saturday in 2083, Dashain's first day among them. An employee resting on Saturday anyway gains nothing, so two companies granting an identical set of days can lose different amounts of working time. Nothing in the Act requires you to move the day, and nothing stops you from doing so.
Working a public holiday earns substitute leave
Section 42 covers work that cannot be stopped. A labour engaged on a day of weekly or public leave gets substitute leave, and Section 42(2) requires it within 21 days of the day worked. It is a deadline, not a balance to be carried, which is the part most policies miss.
Dashain and Tihar are blocks, not days
The notice grants Dashain as Ashoj 31 through Kartik 6, seven consecutive days from Phulpati to Dwadashi, and Tihar as five from Laxmi Puja to the day after Bhai Tika. Ghatasthapana is granted separately, six days before the block begins. Any leave system that models holidays as single dates will get the middle of Dashain wrong.
Your regulator may not be the Home Ministry
Banks follow Nepal Rastra Bank's calendar rather than this one, which is why the bank is shut on days your office is not. A province may declare up to 6 additional days of its own under the notice's own proviso, and Fagu Purnima is already split, falling a day later in the Tarai districts than in the hills.
The Calendar That Leave and Payroll Both Read
Publishing a holiday list is the easy half. The hard half is every downstream calculation agreeing with it, which is where a spreadsheet stops helping.
- A holiday is stored with a start and an end date, so Dashain is one entry rather than seven.
- Leave approved across a holiday does not charge those days to the employee's balance.
- Attendance and payroll read the same holiday dates, so a holiday inside a period is not counted as absence.
- Overtime worked on a holiday is priced through its own category rather than the weekday rate.
Nepal Public Holidays, Answered
13 paid days a year, and 14 to a female employee, under Section 41(1) of the Labour Act 2074. The government's annual notice lists far more, about 34 days for a general employee, but that notice binds government offices and public bodies. A private employer owes the count and picks the days itself under Section 41(2).
The 2083 notice grants Dashain from Ashoj 31 to Kartik 6, seven consecutive days covering Phulpati through Dwadashi, which is Sat, 17 Oct 2026 onwards in the AD calendar. Ghatasthapana is a separate holiday six days earlier, on Ashoj 25.
Yes, within limits. Section 41(2) says the public holidays for an enterprise are as determined by the regulatory authority that regulates it, and as determined by the employer where there is none. What an employer cannot do is grant fewer days than Section 41(1) requires. Choosing which days, and publishing them at the start of the year, is normal practice.
No. Public leave under Section 41 is its own entitlement, separate from home leave under Section 43 and sick leave under Section 44. A public holiday falling inside a period of approved leave should not be charged to the leave balance, which is a common source of quiet overcharging in spreadsheet-run leave.
Section 42 gives substitute leave to a labour engaged in work on a day of weekly or public leave, and Section 42(2) requires it to be provided within 21 days of the date worked. Overtime rules under Sections 30 and 31 apply separately to the hours themselves.
Not under this notice. Teej is listed as a holiday for female employees only, alongside Jitiya. It is also not the extra day the Labour Act gives a female labour: Section 41(1) names International Women Labour Day for that. The two are separate provisions and are frequently reported as one.
The Nepal Rajpatra, Khanda 75, Sankhya 67, Bhag 5, published 2082-11-18 BS by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of Nepal. The dates are lunisolar and shift every year, so this calendar is rebuilt from the new notice each year rather than rolled forward.
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