Malaysia Public Holidays 2026 & 2027: Full Gazette List

Malaysia public holidays 2026 are not one list. They are three tables, published together by the Cabinet Division of the Prime Minister’s Department, and which row applies to you depends on which state you are standing in when the day arrives.

Alamak, and the tables move. The 2026 schedule went up in August 2025; in March 2026 a separate gazette notification added a day to it that is still not on that PDF. Anyone who printed the calendar in January was already carrying an out-of-date copy by Raya.

Quick Answer: for 2026, the federal list runs from Chinese New Year on 17 and 18 February through Hari Raya Puasa on 21 and 22 March, Hari Raya Qurban on 27 May, Maulidur Rasul on 25 August, Deepavali on 8 November and Christmas on 25 December, and one more day, 20 March 2026, was added by gazette in Peninsular Malaysia and Labuan. For 2027, Chinese New Year falls on 6 and 7 February, Hari Raya Puasa on 10 and 11 March, Hari Raya Qurban on 17 May, Wesak on 20 May, Merdeka on 31 August and Deepavali on 28 October. Every state list is below, in full, from the gazette.

• Two schedules, not one — a federal public holiday, marked (P), applies across the columns ticked for it; a state public holiday, marked (N), applies only in the states ticked. Some days are both.
• The asterisk is doing work — most Islamic dates on the schedules carry one (Awal Muharram and Maulidur Rasul do not), and the note under the table reads tertakluk kepada perubahan: subject to change.
• Three different laws — the Holidays Act 1951 covers Peninsular Malaysia and the Federal Territory only. Sabah runs on its own ordinance, Sarawak on another, and the substitution rules are not identical.
• The list can grow mid-year — section 8 of the Act lets the Prime Minister gazette an extra day at any point, which is exactly what happened in March 2026.

Below: who decides, the full 2026 federal and state tables, the day that was added afterwards, the full 2027 tables, and what happens when a holiday lands on the day you were already off.

Fed vs stateFederal listAdded late

Federal, State, and the Law That Decides Which One You Get

Start with the law, because it explains why your neighbour in the next state gets a day you do not. The Holidays Act 1951 [Act 369] says in section 1(2) that it applies to the States of Peninsular Malaysia only, and section 2 adds that in this Act, Peninsular Malaysia includes the Federal Territory. Section 3 then makes the days in the First Schedule public holidays.

That First Schedule already splits the country. Chinese New Year is written as one day in the States of Kelantan and Terengganu, two days in the other States. Hari Raya Haji is written the other way round: two days in the States of Kelantan dan Terengganu, one day in the other States. Neither of those is a quirk of a particular year; it is the statute.

Sabah and Sarawak are outside Act 369 entirely. Sabah runs on the Holidays Ordinance (Sabah Cap. 56), where section 3(1) keeps the First Schedule days as public holidays and the Yang di-Pertua Negeri may amend the Schedules by order. Sarawak runs on the Public Holidays Ordinance (Sarawak Chapter 8). Both have their own substitution rule, and they are not worded the same as the Peninsular one.

Every year the Cabinet Division publishes three tables: the federal schedule, the state schedule, and a combined table where each row is tagged (P) for Hari Kelepasan Am Persekutuan or (N) for Hari Kelepasan Am Negeri. The sixteen columns are always in the same order — W.P. Kuala Lumpur, W.P. Labuan, W.P. Putrajaya, Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Melaka, N. Sembilan, Pahang, Perak, Perlis, P. Pinang, Sabah, Sarawak, Selangor, Terengganu — and a column tells you whether that day is a holiday where you are — the 2026 PDF marks it with a tick, the 2027 PDF with a dash for a non-observing state instead, so read the legend on whichever year’s table you are looking at.

The tables live at kabinet.gov.my/hari-kelepasan-am/, which carried a site stamp of 02 September 2026 when this page was last checked. The gazette notifications, the Act itself and the two Borneo ordinances sit one click away at kabinet.gov.my/akta-dan-warta/. That second page is the one almost nobody opens, and it is where the surprises are.

Malaysia Public Holidays 2026: The Federal List

Twelve numbered items, fifteen dated entries, because three of them — Chinese New Year, Hari Raya Puasa and Hari Raya Qurban — carry a second day that lands in a different set of states. (Melaka’s third day of Hari Raya Puasa is on the state table, not this one.) Read the right-hand column before you book anything.

Two rows in that table are where most published calendars go wrong. The second day of Chinese New Year shows as not-federal in Kelantan and Terengganu, which reads like those two states do not get it — but item 6 of the state schedule gazettes 18 February for exactly those two, so it is a public holiday in all sixteen. The second day of Hari Raya Qurban is the opposite story: 28 May 2026 is federal in Kelantan and Terengganu and state-level in Kedah and Perlis, which makes four, and it is a normal working day everywhere else.

The other one worth noting is Deepavali, 8 November 2026, ticked in every column except Sarawak.

The 2026 Holiday That Was Gazetted After the List Was Printed

On 18 March 2026 the Federal Government Gazette published P.U. (B) 111, dated 17 March 2026. Under section 8 of the Holidays Act 1951 the Prime Minister appointed an additional public holiday in Peninsular Malaysia — and wrote it as a condition rather than a date: 20 March 2026, if Hari Raya Puasa falls on 21 March 2026; or 23 March 2026, if Hari Raya Puasa falls on 20 March 2026. P.U. (B) 112 of the same date did the same thing for the Federal Territory of Labuan, which needs its own notification because Act 369 reaches Labuan only through P.U. (A) 511/2005.

It was written as a condition because on 17 March nobody yet knew. The rukyah hilal for Syawal was held on 29 Ramadan, 19 March 2026, and 1 Syawal 1447H was determined as Saturday 21 March 2026. That is limb (a). So the extra public holiday was 20 March 2026, a Friday, in Peninsular Malaysia and in Labuan.

Neither the schedule PDF from August 2025 nor Johor’s own circular, which the state page dates 10 December 2025, contains that day. They were both written before it existed. This is the practical rule that comes out of it: the schedule is a snapshot, the gazette is the record. If a date matters to your pay, your court filing or your flight, check the akta dan warta page as well as the calendar, because section 8 works any day of the year.

State Holidays 2026, and the Five Places That Do Not Stop for New Year

Thirty-three numbered items, thirty-six dated entries. This is the table that decides whether you are working on a day your cousin is not.

Three things in that table are worth saying out loud. New Year’s Day is not a public holiday in five places — Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis and Terengganu — and Perlis is the one that gets left off most lists. Awal Ramadan, 19 February 2026, is gazetted in Johor and Kedah only, and nowhere else. And 1 February 2026 carries two different holidays: Federal Territory Day in Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya, and Thaipusam in Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Johor, Negeri Sembilan, Perak, Penang and Selangor.

Malaysia Public Holidays 2027: The Federal List

The 2027 schedule is published and sitting on the same page as the 2026 one. Same shape: twelve numbered items, fifteen dated entries.

Four things to note before you plan around it. Chinese New Year lands on a Saturday and a Sunday, 6 and 7 February 2027. Labour Day is a Saturday and Christmas Day is a Saturday. Maulidur Rasul, 15 August 2027, is a Sunday, and so is Awal Muharram on 6 June. What happens to a holiday that lands on your rest day is the section further down — and it is not the same answer in every state.

The Islamic dates on this table carry the asterisk. Hari Raya Puasa, Hari Raya Qurban, its second day and Deepavali are all marked tertakluk kepada perubahan; Hari Raya Puasa in particular is settled by the moon sighting on the twenty-ninth day, the way 2026 was — this article did not verify the same short notice for Hari Raya Qurban.

State Holidays 2027, State by State

Thirty-five numbered items, thirty-seven dated entries, and one pattern that catches people out: Israk dan Mikraj appears twice in 2027, on 6 January and again on 26 December, because the Hijri year is shorter than the Gregorian one.

When a Holiday Lands on Your Weekly Rest Day

First, which day is your weekly holiday, because the substitution rule hangs off it. The Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam circular on working hours splits the public service into two groups.

That is the line that changed. Johor is in the Monday-to-Friday group, and the Johor state government’s own public holiday page states its weekly holiday as Hari Kelepasan Mingguan (Ahad) — Sunday. Plenty of older calendars still group Johor with Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu. They are out of date.

Now the rule itself. In Peninsular Malaysia and the Federal Territory, the proviso to section 3 of the Holidays Act 1951 says that unless the State Authority, or the Minister for the Federal Territory, provides otherwise by notification in the Gazette, a public holiday falling on a weekly holiday makes the day following a public holiday — and if that day is already a public holiday, then the day after that. Section 2 defines the weekly holiday as Sunday, or Friday in the States where Friday is observed as the weekly holiday.

The two Borneo states say it in their own words. The Sabah ordinance: if any of the scheduled days falls on a Sunday, the following day is observed as the public holiday unless otherwise ordered by the Yang di-Pertua Negeri. The Sarawak ordinance: if any of those days falls on a Sunday, the following Monday is a public holiday, unless the Yang di-Pertua Negeri orders otherwise by notification in the Gazette.

And the states publish the part that is easiest to get wrong — Saturday. The Johor page states that a public holiday falling on a Saturday is not replaced by the following day. Kedah’s 2026 notice says the mirror image, because Kedah’s weekly holiday is Friday: a state public holiday falling on a Friday or on another holiday is replaced by the following day, and one falling on a Saturday is still a state public holiday and is not replaced on another day.

So the honest answer to “do I get Monday off?” is: the Act gives you the following day when the holiday lands on your weekly holiday, a Saturday is not a weekly holiday anywhere on that map, and the state circular is what settles it in the end. On the 2026 federal list, three dates land on a Sunday — 22 March, 31 May and 8 November. On the 2027 federal list, three do — 7 February, 6 June and 15 August.

What This Page Does Not Settle: School Holidays and Paid Leave

School holidays are a different document. The Kalendar Persekolahan for 2026 is Surat Siaran KPM Bil. 3/2025, published by the Ministry of Education and mirrored on the same Cabinet Division page as the holiday schedules; the term dates, the Kumpulan A and Kumpulan B split and the cuti perayaan are set out in our guide to school holidays in Malaysia.

A gazetted public holiday is also not the same thing as a paid day off at work. That entitlement lives in section 60D of the Employment Act 1955, which applies to Peninsular Malaysia and the Federal Territory of Labuan only — Sabah and Sarawak run on their own labour ordinances. Under section 60D(1)(a) an employee gets a paid holiday on eleven of the gazetted public holidays in a calendar year, five of them named by the Act and the remaining six chosen by the employer and put up on a notice before the year starts. Section 60D(1)(b) adds a separate, automatic entitlement: any day appointed as an extra public holiday under section 8 of the Holidays Act 1951 — the 20 March 2026 day discussed above is one — is a paid holiday in its own right, on top of the eleven. The detail — substitution, working on a holiday, and which employees the First Schedule carves out — is in our guide to leave entitlement.

Walaoeh Verdict

Read the right-hand column, not the headline. Almost every wrong Malaysian holiday calendar is wrong in the same way: it takes the federal list, prints it as the national list, and drops the state column. That is how the second day of Hari Raya Qurban ends up looking national when it reaches four states, and how New Year’s Day ends up looking national when five states do not observe it.

The schedule is a snapshot. The gazette is the record.

Check the gazette page once a quarter, not once a year. The 2026 schedule was published in August 2025 and was already incomplete by March 2026. Nothing was corrected on the PDF; a separate notification simply appeared under akta dan warta. Anyone working from the calendar alone never saw it.

For 2027, plan around the fixed dates and treat the starred ones as provisional. Merdeka on 31 August, Malaysia Day on 16 September, Labour Day on 1 May, Christmas on 25 December and the Agong’s birthday on 7 June are the ones that do not move. Hari Raya Puasa, Hari Raya Qurban and Deepavali carry the asterisk; Hari Raya Puasa specifically is settled a day or two before by the moon sighting, the way 2026 was — book the flexible ticket.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Sources

Every date, state column and rule on this page comes from an official Malaysian government document, checked on 21 September 2026. The two schedules were read from the PDFs the Prime Minister’s Department publishes, and the 2026 state columns were then checked again against the Federal Government Gazette, which prints the sixteen column headings as text. Two dates that the gazette left conditional — the added day in March 2026 — were resolved against the state mufti department announcement and JAKIM’s Islamic calendar, and both are cited below.

• Jabatan Perdana Menteri (BKPP) — Jadual Hari Kelepasan Am Persekutuan dan Negeri, 2026 (PDF)
• Jabatan Perdana Menteri (BKPP) — Jadual Hari Kelepasan Am Persekutuan dan Negeri, 2027 (PDF)
• Warta Kerajaan Persekutuan No. 33499 to 33501, 28 August 2025 — the 2026 schedules as gazetted (PDF)
• P.U. (B) 111, Federal Government Gazette 18 March 2026 — notification under section 8, Peninsular Malaysia (PDF)
• P.U. (B) 112, Federal Government Gazette 18 March 2026 — notification under section 8, Federal Territory of Labuan (PDF)
• Laws of Malaysia Act 369 — Holidays Act 1951 (PDF, as published by JPM)
• State of Sabah — Holidays Ordinance (Sabah Cap. 56) (PDF, as published by JPM)
• Sarawak — Public Holidays Ordinance (Chapter 8) (PDF, as published by JPM)
• Jabatan Perdana Menteri (BKPP) — Hari Kelepasan Am, the page that hosts the yearly schedules
• Jabatan Perdana Menteri (BKPP) — Akta dan Warta, the page that hosts the gazette notifications
• Kerajaan Negeri Johor — Cuti Umum Johor 2026, including the weekly holiday and substitution rule
• Kedah — Hari Kelepasan Am Negeri Kedah Darul Aman Tahun 2026, including the substitution rule (PDF)
• Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam — MyPPSM, Waktu Bekerja: which states run a Friday to Saturday week
• Jabatan Mufti Negeri Perlis — rukyah hilal determined 1 Syawal 1447H as Saturday 21 March 2026
• JAKIM e-Solat — Kalendar Islam, 01 Syawal 1447 as 21 Mac 2026
• Surat Siaran KPM Bil. 3/2025 — Kalendar Akademik 2026 (PDF, as published by JPM)
• Laws of Malaysia Act 265 — Employment Act 1955, section 60D (PDF, as published by JTKSM)