The UAE has seven official public holidays, the same for the government and the private sector under Cabinet Resolution No. 27 of 2024. Four of them follow the Islamic calendar and are confirmed by moon sighting, so their exact dates are announced shortly before they arrive. For 2026, the private-sector days off were announced as New Year's Day, Eid Al Fitr, Arafat Day and Eid Al Adha, Hijri New Year and the Prophet's Birthday, with National Day still to come on 2 and 3 December.
A public holiday is a payroll event as much as a day off. It decides who is rostered, who is paid a premium, whether a leave request in that week costs one day or three, and whether a multi-country team gets the right day off in the right place. This guide covers the 2026 dates, how they are announced, and how to plan rosters, leave and overtime around them.
The seven official public holidays
The official list, as published on the UAE government portal:
The Islamic holidays are determined by moon sighting, which is why nobody can give you their exact Gregorian dates a year ahead with certainty. Since the start of 2025, the Cabinet can also move some holidays to the beginning or end of the week. The two Eids are not moved this way.
The 2026 private-sector dates, as announced
These are the days announced for private-sector employees in 2026:
Note that the private sector and the federal government did not always get identical days around Eid Al Adha in 2026: federal employees had an extra day. If you benchmark your holidays against a government calendar, check which sector it is for.
How holidays are announced, and what that means for planning
For the fixed-date holidays, New Year's Day and National Day, you can plan a year ahead. For the four Islamic holidays, the pattern is:
So build rosters with the expected dates, mark them as provisional, and leave yourself a way to shift one day either side without rebuilding the week. The 2026 Eid Al Fitr is a good example: the condition triggered, and the holiday ran to a fourth day.
Rosters: who works, and on what terms
Many UAE businesses do not close on public holidays: retail, hospitality, facilities, healthcare, logistics. For them, the holiday is a roster question.
Under the labour law, an employee required to work on a public holiday is entitled either to a substitute rest day, or to their normal wage for that day plus at least 50 per cent of their basic wage. Decide which approach you use before the holiday, tell the people affected, and make sure the record shows who actually worked.
Two practical rules help:
Leave around public holidays
Holidays change what a leave request is worth. Someone asking for leave across Eid may only need a couple of days to get a much longer break, and every year those requests arrive at once.
Ramadan hours
Ramadan is not a public holiday, but it changes working time for everyone. MoHRE announced for 2026, as in previous years, that private-sector working hours are reduced by two hours a day during Ramadan. Lateness, overtime and expected hours should all follow the shorter day, or your Ramadan attendance report will be full of false exceptions.
Multi-country teams
If you have sites outside the UAE, a UAE holiday is not their holiday. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman each have their own national days and their own announcements, and rest days can differ by country as well. A single company-wide holiday list will either give a Doha store the UAE National Day or deny it its own.
How Wurxa applies public holidays per site
In Wurxa, public holidays live in the compliance calendar, and each holiday can be given a country. A UAE holiday then applies only to your UAE sites, while your other countries follow their own. A holiday with no country applies to every site, and the settings page points those out so you can assign one. When the moon sighting moves a date, you update the entry once and every site in that country follows.
From there the rest lines up:
Wurxa is free for up to 5 employees, and every new workspace gets every feature free for 14 days, with no card. Set up your workspace before National Day, add your sites and their countries, and see the December roster with the holiday already on it.
Dates are as announced for the UAE private sector in 2026. Islamic holiday dates depend on moon sighting and official announcements; always confirm against MoHRE before finalising payroll. This article is general information, not legal advice.
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