All of Australia
Long weekends, month by month
The next statewide long weekend starts Fri 25 Dec, in 62 days: Christmas Day and Boxing Day in NSW, VIC, QLD, WA, TAS, the ACT and the NT; Christmas Day and Proclamation Day in SA. Part of TAS has one sooner: Sat 31 Oct – Mon 2 Nov (Recreation Day).
Pick a month
- November long weekend2026
No statewide long weekend, though three parts of the country do.
- December long weekend2026
- Fri 25 – Mon 28 Dec every state and territory
- January long weekend2027
- Fri 1 – Sun 3 Jan every state and territory
- February long weekend2027
No statewide long weekend, though one part of the country does.
- March long weekend2027
- Sat 27 Feb – Mon 1 Mar WA
- Sat 6 – Mon 8 Mar VIC, SA, TAS and the ACT
- Fri 26 – Mon 29 Mar every state and territory
- April long weekend2027
- Sat 24 – Mon 26 Apr NSW, QLD, WA, the ACT and the NT
- May long weekend2027
- Sat 1 – Mon 3 May QLD and the NT
- Sat 29 – Mon 31 May the ACT
- June long weekend2027
- Sat 5 – Mon 7 Jun WA
- Sat 12 – Mon 14 Jun NSW, VIC, SA, TAS, the ACT and the NT
- July long weekend2027
No statewide long weekend, though four parts of the country do.
- August long weekend2027
- Sat 31 Jul – Mon 2 Aug the NT
- September long weekend2027
- Sat 25 – Mon 27 Sep WA
- October long weekend2027
- Fri 1 – Sun 3 Oct VIC (not yet confirmed)
- Sat 2 – Mon 4 Oct NSW, QLD, SA and the ACT
Why nobody gets them all
They cluster around Easter, midwinter and Christmas
Public holidays are set by eight separate parliaments, so long weekends are not distributed evenly and never line up. The second Monday in March is a long weekend in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT — for four different holidays — and an ordinary working Monday in the other four jurisdictions.
The clusters are Easter, midwinter and Christmas, which is why the months in between can be genuinely empty. Those gaps are useful to know about if you are deciding when to take leave: a month with no public holiday is a month where a day off costs a full day of leave.
Every date here is worked out from each state's own law rather than assumed — start at public holidays by state to see the working.
How a long weekend is counted here
Worked out from the published dates, not from the holiday's name
A long weekend means three or more days in a row with no working day in the middle — a weekend plus at least one public holiday touching it. It is worked out from each state and territory's own list rather than assumed, which matters because a public holiday landing on a Saturday does not make one by itself.
Anzac Day 2026 is the case in point. It fell on a Saturday everywhere, and only New South Wales, Western Australia and the ACT got a long weekend out of it — because only those three added a Monday. The same holiday, the same weekend, and five states and territories went back to work on the Monday.
The month pages answer for whole states, so a holiday covering one district does not put a state in the table — but it is still a long weekend for the people it covers, and each month page lists those separately. This models a standard Monday-to-Friday week, which is not everyone's, and counts only whole-day public holidays: an evening part-day holiday does not extend a weekend. Every date traces to the Act named on the state's own page.
What a day of leave is actually worth
A public holiday on a Tuesday or a Thursday sits one working day away from the weekend. Book that day and a three-day break becomes four. Where two holidays fall in the same week the arithmetic gets better still, which is why the end of December is the best value in the calendar almost everywhere.
The biggest ones are the same wherever you live, because they are built on Christmas and New Year and every state and territory has those. Where the country genuinely splits is on the days only some places keep — and the clearest example is Victoria's Melbourne Cup Day: booking Mon 2 Nov buys 4 days off, Sat 31 Oct to Tue 3 Nov, and buys nothing at all in the other seven. Each state's page carries its own full table.
A holiday inside your leave does not come out of your balance
Section 89(1) of the Fair Work Act 2009 says that where paid annual leave includes a public holiday “in the place where the employee is based for work purposes”, the employee “is taken not to be on paid annual leave on that public holiday”. A week of leave containing one of these costs four days, not five.
The test is where you are based for work, not where you live — the same phrase section 114 uses for the right to be absent. That is what makes a regional day worth checking: a public holiday that applies to your workplace and not your suburb still counts, and one that applies to your suburb and not your workplace does not.
Whether a particular day is paid, and at what rate if you work it, is a question about your award rather than the calendar — Payjoey works from the Fair Work rules. This page only says which days to book.