Uttar Pradesh Public Holidays 2026

Understanding Uttar Pradesh's Holiday Calendar in 2026

Uttar Pradesh has the longest declared holiday calendar of any Indian state, and it is not close. The combination of 29 gazetted days and a further 10 optional ones reflects both the size of the state and the breadth of communities within it. The list carries Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jain, and Christian observances alongside a set of political and social-reform anniversaries that exist nowhere else.

For employers, the practical difficulty is density rather than any single date. Noida and Ghaziabad in particular sit in an awkward position: they operate as part of the Delhi NCR economy but follow the UP holiday calendar, which is materially longer than Delhi's. A company with offices in Gurugram, Delhi, and Noida runs three different calendars inside a thirty-kilometre radius.

For payroll, commercial establishments fall under the Uttar Pradesh Dookan Aur Vanijya Adhishthan Adhiniyam, 1962. The state issues its holiday notification through the Secretariat Administration Department, separating general holidays from a restricted list. Factories follow the Factories Act, and UP's large manufacturing base means the two lists genuinely diverge for many employers.

National Holidays in Uttar Pradesh

Republic Day is on Monday, January 26, Independence Day on Saturday, August 15 and Gandhi Jayanti on Friday, October 2. Independence Day joins Deepawali and Chhath Puja among the five gazetted dates that fall on a weekend in Uttar Pradesh this year, which leaves Republic Day and Gandhi Jayanti as the only national days costing a working day.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Jayanti on Tuesday, April 14 carries unusual political weight in Uttar Pradesh. Observance is universal and highly visible, with public functions across the state, and it is not a date where partial working is realistic even in sectors that otherwise operate through holidays.

Uttar Pradesh-Specific Holidays

Holi is a three-day event in Uttar Pradesh, which is more than almost any other state grants. Holika Dahan falls on Monday, March 2, Holi on Wednesday, March 4, and the day following on Thursday, March 5, with Tuesday March 3 sitting between them as a working day that few people will actually work. In practice the first week of March is written off across UP, and the Braj region around Mathura and Vrindavan sees festival activity for considerably longer.

Chhath Puja on Sunday, November 15 is the date that most affects staffing, despite falling on a weekend in 2026. Chhath draws workers back to eastern UP and Bihar in enormous numbers, and the travel window runs for the better part of a week either side. Trains are booked out months ahead. If you employ migrant workers from Purvanchal, plan for extended absence around this date regardless of what the declared calendar says.

Janmashtami on Friday, September 4 has a specific geography in UP. Mathura and Vrindavan are the principal sites, and travel into the Braj region that week is very heavy. For employers in Agra and the western districts, road access is genuinely affected.

The Dussehra and Diwali period runs long. Maha Ashtami on Monday October 19 and Vijayadashami on Tuesday October 20, then Valmiki and Patel Jayanti on Monday October 26, then Deepawali on Sunday November 8, Govardhan Puja on Monday November 9, and Bhaiya Dooj on Wednesday November 11. That is six declared days inside four weeks, with Chhath following on November 15. October and November are effectively half-strength months in Uttar Pradesh.

Basant Panchami on Friday, January 23 is a full closure in UP where many states treat it as optional. It marks the start of spring and is significant in the education sector particularly, with Saraswati Puja observed in schools and colleges across the state.

Restricted Holidays in Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh publishes a long optional list of ten dates in 2026, reflecting the range of communities in the state. It covers New Year's Day, Hazrat Ali's Birthday on January 3, Guru Gobind Singh Jayanti on January 5, Karpoori Thakur Jayanti on January 24, Sant Ravidas Jayanti on February 1, Shab-e-Barat on February 4, Jamat-ul-Vida on March 13, Parshuram Jayanti on April 19, Vishwakarma Puja on September 17, and Chaudhary Charan Singh Jayanti on December 23.

Vishwakarma Puja on Thursday, September 17 behaves differently from the rest. In UP's manufacturing belt around Kanpur, Ghaziabad and Noida, it is observed on the shop floor with machinery worship and is effectively a full closure in industrial units even though it sits on the optional list. Treating it as a normal working day in a factory setting is not realistic.

Sant Ravidas Jayanti on February 1 and Parshuram Jayanti on April 19 both fall on Sundays in 2026, removing their practical value. That pushes demand onto the January cluster, where three optional dates fall within four weeks of each other.

Employees typically choose two or three restricted days from the list with advance approval. Given the length of the UP list, publishing it early and requiring selections by the end of January is the only way to keep the administration manageable.

HR & Payroll Guidance for Uttar Pradesh, 2026

The Noida and Ghaziabad calendar mismatch is the single most common UP payroll problem. These cities are functionally part of the Delhi NCR labour market, but they follow the Uttar Pradesh holiday notification, which is substantially longer than Delhi's. Employees moving between an NCR employer's Gurugram and Noida offices notice immediately, and a single company-wide calendar will be wrong for at least one site.

Chhath Puja requires a staffing plan rather than a holiday entry. The declared day is Sunday, November 15, but the practical absence window for employees travelling to eastern UP and Bihar spans roughly a week. Insisting on the declared day alone produces either unauthorised absence or a wave of last-minute leave that cannot be refused without serious friction.

Islamic dates in UP are notified as provisional and there are more of them than in most states: Eid ul-Fitr on March 21, Eid ul-Adha on May 27, Muharram on June 25, Eid-e-Milad on August 26, plus Shab-e-Barat and Jamat-ul-Vida on the optional list. All depend on moon sighting. Lucknow, Kanpur, and the western districts have large Muslim populations, so these are full closures rather than nominal ones, and a date shift has real operational consequence.

Engage HRMS handles the NCR problem directly by binding a holiday calendar to work location rather than to the company. A Noida employee sees the UP list, a Gurugram colleague sees the Haryana list, and a Delhi colleague sees Delhi's, with leave balances and payroll calculating correctly for each without maintaining parallel spreadsheets or reconciling them by hand each month.