Uttarakhand Public Holidays 2026

Understanding Uttarakhand's Holiday Calendar in 2026

Uttarakhand declares its 2026 holidays in four schedules, by General Administration Department notification No. 1809/xxxi(15)G/25-74(SAO)/2016, Dehradun, digitally signed on 24 December 2025. Schedule-1 carries 25 public holidays for the whole state; Schedule-2 adds three more; Schedule-3 is a 17-day restricted list from which each employee may take any two; Schedule-4 is the separate list of 23 days declared under Section 25 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 for banks and treasuries.

The schedules are not interchangeable, and the differences are the whole point. Schedule-1 holidays expressly do not apply to banks, treasuries and sub-treasuries; those follow Schedule-4. Schedule-2 does not apply to the Secretariat, the Vidhan Sabha or any office running a five-day week; for those offices the three days move onto the restricted list instead, to be taken within the normal quota.

That gives three different totals for the same year. A district office gets 28 public holidays, a five-day-week Secretariat office gets 25, and a bank or treasury gets 23. Any single number quoted for Uttarakhand is wrong for two of the three.

District Magistrates may additionally declare up to three local holidays under paragraph 247 of the Manual of Government Orders. Those local holidays do not close the Vidhan Sabha, the Secretariat or five-day-week offices, which stay open. For payroll, commercial establishments fall under the Uttarakhand Shops and Establishments Act.

National Holidays in Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand's Schedule-1 opens with the fixed national dates, Republic Day on Monday 26 January, Independence Day on Saturday 15 August and Gandhi Jayanti on Friday 2 October, and carries Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar Jayanti on Tuesday 14 April as a public holiday in its own right.

Four of the 25 Schedule-1 days fall on a weekend in 2026 (Mahashivratri on Sunday 15 February, Id-ul-Fitr on Saturday 21 March, Independence Day on Saturday 15 August and Deepavali on Sunday 8 November), leaving 21 weekday closures from Schedule-1.

Islamic dates carry an automatic-adjustment clause. The notification marks Id-ul-Fitr, Bakrid, Moharram, Id-e-Milad, Shab-e-Barat, Jamat-ul-Vida and Chehlum with an asterisk and states that if the date changes on local moon sighting it changes automatically, with no separate order required. The revised date is deemed ordered.

Uttarakhand-Specific Holidays

Harela on Thursday 16 July is Uttarakhand's own, and it is a full Schedule-1 public holiday that also appears on the banking schedule. It marks the start of the monsoon sowing season and the Kumaoni new year, and is observed with sapling planting across the hill districts.

Igas-Bagwal on Friday 20 November is the Garhwali Diwali, celebrated eleven days after the main festival. The story is that news of Rama's return reached the hills late; the practical effect is a second Diwali closure nearly two weeks after the first, which no other state declares. It is on both the state and the banking schedules.

The Diwali cluster is the heaviest stretch of the year. Deepavali falls on Sunday 8 November, Govardhan Puja on Tuesday 10 November, and Igas-Bagwal on Friday 20 November, with Narak Chaturdashi on Saturday 7 November and Bhaiya Dooj on Wednesday 11 November available as restricted days. Monday 9 November is a working day.

Uttarakhand declares both days of Holi as separate Schedule-1 holidays: Holika Dahan on Tuesday 3 March and Holi on Wednesday 4 March. Most states declare only one.

Veer Kesharichand Martyrdom Day on Sunday 3 May is the state's own commemoration of the Indian National Army officer from Jaunsar-Bawar hanged by the British in 1945. It sits on the restricted list and falls on a Sunday in 2026.

Restricted Holidays in Uttarakhand

The restricted list runs to 17 days and each employee may take any two of them. For the Secretariat, the Vidhan Sabha and five-day-week offices, the three Schedule-2 days (Chetichand on 19 March, Vishwakarma Puja on 17 September and Guru Tegh Bahadur Martyrdom Day on 24 November) are added to that list rather than granted as closures, though they remain subject to the same two-day cap.

Six of the 17 are worth nothing in 2026. Guru Ravidas Jayanti on 1 February, Veer Kesharichand Martyrdom Day on 3 May, Maharaja Agrasen Jayanti on 11 October and Chhath Puja on 15 November fall on Sundays; Narak Chaturdashi on 7 November falls on a Saturday; and Dussehra Mahanavami is listed on 20 October, the same date as the Schedule-1 Dussehra. Vaisakhi on 14 April is a seventh, sharing its date with Ambedkar Jayanti.

Chhath Puja on Sunday 15 November will still generate leave requests. Uttarakhand's terai districts, Udham Singh Nagar and Haridwar in particular, have large Purvanchali populations, and the festival involves travel on either side of the day itself.

HR & Payroll Guidance for Uttarakhand, 2026

The three-totals problem is the thing to get right. Twenty-eight public holidays for an ordinary district office, 25 for a five-day-week office, 23 for banks and treasuries. An employer that publishes one calendar for all its Uttarakhand locations will be wrong somewhere, and a five-day-week office that grants Schedule-2 as closures is granting days the state did not.

Moharram on 26 June and Maharishi Valmiki Jayanti on 26 October are Schedule-1 holidays that are not on the banking schedule, and 1 April is on the banking schedule for annual closing of commercial bank accounts but is not a state holiday. Payment-dependent work resolves to a different calendar than office work on those three days.

The automatic-adjustment clause for lunar dates removes an administrative step but adds a monitoring one. If Id-ul-Fitr moves, the holiday moves with it and no fresh order is issued, so nothing will arrive to prompt a calendar update. Someone has to be watching the date rather than waiting for a notification.

District Magistrates hold three local holidays each, which means neighbouring district offices can close on different days and the Dehradun Secretariat stays open through all of them. If you operate across Kumaon and Garhwal, the local layer has to be tracked per district, since it is not published centrally.

Engage HRMS models Uttarakhand's schedules as separate layers, so a five-day-week office, a district office and a bank-facing finance team resolve their own correct set, and district local holidays attach to a location rather than to the state calendar.