Arunachal Pradesh Public Holidays 2026

Understanding Arunachal Pradesh's Holiday Calendar in 2026

Arunachal Pradesh gazettes 17 holidays in 2026, one of the shortest lists in India, alongside 35 restricted holidays and a separate list of 42 local holidays. The three-tier structure is what makes the state unusual, and reading only the gazetted list or only the restricted one gives a badly distorted picture of how much time an establishment actually loses.

The critical detail is that both of the longer lists are capped. Employees may avail any 2 days from the 35-day restricted list, and Deputy Commissioners may declare only 2 days as local holidays for their district out of the 42 tribal festivals in Annexure-III. So the practical ceiling for any individual employee is 17 gazetted days plus 2 restricted plus 2 local, around 21 days rather than the 90-odd that the three annexures add up to.

The tribal festivals that define Arunachal culturally are local holidays rather than gazetted ones: Si Donyi Hilo, Reh, Nyokum Yullo, Mopin, Dree, Solung Gidi and Losar. They are declared district by district, so the same festival is a closure in one district and an ordinary working day in the next. For payroll, commercial establishments fall under the Arunachal Pradesh Shops and Establishments Act, 1966.

National Holidays in Arunachal Pradesh

Republic Day on Monday, January 26, Independence Day on Saturday, August 15 and Gandhi Jayanti on Friday, October 2 are mandatory. Arunachal loses only three gazetted dates to a weekend in 2026, and Independence Day is one of them, with Eid ul-Fitr and Diwali the others.

Arunachal Pradesh does not declare Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Jayanti on April 14 in any of the three annexures. April 14 appears only as Vaisakhi on the restricted list. This is a genuine difference from most of the country and one that a shared national calendar will get wrong by showing April 14 as a full closure.

Arunachal Pradesh-Specific Holidays

The 17 gazetted days are New Year's Day, Makar Sankranti, Republic Day, Statehood Day, Holi, Eid ul-Fitr, Good Friday, Bohag Bihu, Buddha Purnima, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti, Dussehra on October 19 and 20, Diwali, Guru Nanak Jayanti, Indigenous Faith Day, and Christmas Day. That is the complete list of statewide closures.

Indigenous Faith Day on Tuesday, December 1 is the only indigenous observance on the gazetted list. It marks the Donyi-Polo and other indigenous faiths of Arunachal and is declared statewide, which no other jurisdiction in India does.

Statehood Day on Friday, February 20 marks the state's elevation from union territory in 1987, the same date as Mizoram's Statehood Day, which is convenient for employers operating in both.

The tribal festivals sit in Annexure-III as local holidays, and each Deputy Commissioner may declare only two of them for their district. Si Donyi Hilo (Tagin) falls on January 6, Reh (Idu-Mishmi) on February 1, Boori-Boot Yullo (Nyishi) on February 6, Nyokum Yullo (Nyishi) on February 26, Mopin (Galo) on April 5, Dree (Apatani) on July 5, Solung Gidi (Adi) on September 1, and Chalo-Loku (Nocte) on November 25. Several carry no fixed date at all and are set by the concerned Deputy Commissioner: Losar for the Monpa, Sherdukpen, Memba, Khamba and Meyor, Choekor, Ronghuan, Zhom Puja, Worang Juku, and Khikshaba.

This is why the state cannot be run from a single calendar. Nyokum Yullo is typically the declared local holiday for the Capital Complex around Itanagar, but an office in the Apatani plateau at Ziro will want Dree, one in the Adi districts will want Solung, and one in Tawang will want Losar on a date the DC fixes. All three are legitimate, and none of them is statewide.

Dussehra runs two gazetted days, Monday October 19 as Mahashtami and Tuesday October 20. Saptami on October 18 sits on the restricted list and falls on a Sunday in 2026, so the autumn block costs two working days.

Restricted Holidays in Arunachal Pradesh

The restricted list runs to 35 days for 2026, and an employee may avail any 2 of them. The list length is therefore not a measure of anything an employer needs to staff for; the quota is.

Several observances that are gazetted elsewhere in India sit on Arunachal's restricted list rather than the gazetted one: Eid ul-Adha on May 27, Milad-un-Nabi on August 26, Janmashtami on September 4, Maha Shivaratri on February 15, Easter Sunday on April 5, and Muharram on June 26. An establishment that closes on any of these is doing so by choice, not by requirement.

Seven restricted days fall on Sundays in 2026: Guru Ravidas Jayanti, Ali-Aye-Ligang and Maha Shivaratri, Easter Sunday, Dussehra Saptami, Naraka Chaturdasi, and Chhath Puja. Three more coincide with dates already gazetted: Pongal on January 14, Parsi New Year on August 15, and Guru Tegh Bahadur's Martyrdom Day on November 24. Employees will concentrate their two-day quota on the remainder.

Ali-Aye-Ligang, the Mising sowing festival, appears on the restricted list rather than as a local holiday, which distinguishes it from the tribal festivals in Annexure-III. It falls on Sunday February 15 in 2026 and pairs with Maha Shivaratri on the same line of the notification.

HR & Payroll Guidance for Arunachal Pradesh, 2026

Do not build an Arunachal calendar from an aggregator. The commercial holiday sites publish all three annexures flattened into one list of 45 or more days, which overstates statewide closures by roughly three times and silently promotes district-level local holidays into state-level ones. The General Administration Department notification, with its three separate annexures, is the only source that shows the structure.

The two-day local holiday cap is the single most important operational fact. Set it per district rather than per state, decide it at the start of the year in consultation with the local Deputy Commissioner's declaration, and record it. Otherwise an office at Ziro and an office at Itanagar will diverge without anyone noticing until attendance is disputed.

The genuine capacity picture is around 21 days for any individual employee (17 gazetted, 2 restricted, 2 local), which is close to the national average and much lighter than the neighbouring Northeast states. Arunachal is not the constrained calendar it appears to be at first glance; it is a normal one with an unusually complicated structure.

Engage HRMS models Arunachal's three tiers separately: the 17 gazetted days apply statewide, the restricted list carries a 2-day quota per employee, and local holidays are configured per work location so a Ziro site and an Itanagar site can hold different declared days under the same state policy.