UAE Public Holidays 2026: All 7 Dates and What Stays Open

Written and checked on 22 August 2026 — Oh My Desk, Downtown Dubai, Business Bay & Dubai Design District.

Short answer: the UAE has seven public holidays, set by Cabinet Resolution No. 27 of 2024 and applying to the public and private sectors alike. In 2026 they landed on 1 January, 19–21 March, 26–29 May, 15 June, 28 August and 2–3 December — twelve announced days off for a private-sector employee, fourteen for a federal one, and three of those days are still ahead as of 22 August.

The interesting part is what the list does not tell you. Five of the seven holidays carry Hijri dates, not Gregorian ones, so they have no calendar date until a committee confirms one. And since January 2025 the Cabinet may move a non-Eid holiday to the start or end of the working week. It did exactly that this month: 12 Rabi' Al Awwal was expected on Tuesday 25 August, and the day off was announced for Friday 28 August. Any 2026 planner printed in January had the wrong date.

What are the UAE public holidays in 2026?

Seven, as published on the UAE Government's official public holidays page. The resolution names them by occasion, not by date:

• Gregorian New Year — 1 January
• Eid Al Fitr — 1 to 3 Shawwal
• Arafah Day — 9 Dhu Al Hijjah
• Eid Al Adha — 10 to 12 Dhu Al Hijjah
• Hijri New Year — 1 Muharram
• Prophet Mohammed's Birthday — 12 Rabi' Awwal
• National Day — 2 to 3 December

Two of those seven are fixed calendar dates. The other five are Hijri, and the page states that "Islamic holidays are determined according to moon sighting". Here is what each of them became in 2026, with the announcement that produced it.

Private-sector days as announced. Federal government staff had four days at Eid Al Fitr (19–22 March) and five at Eid Al Adha (25–29 May), for fourteen days in total.

Why does the official list give seven holidays and not fixed dates?

Because the resolution is written in two calendars at once. New Year's Day and National Day are Gregorian and never move. The other five are anchored to the Hijri year, which is roughly eleven days shorter than the Gregorian one, so each of them drifts earlier every year — and none of them has a confirmed Gregorian date until the UAE moon-sighting committee meets.

The gap between astronomy and announcement

Astronomical calculation gets you close: the expected date is usually published months ahead, and it is usually right to within a day. What it cannot tell you is the length of the holiday block or which days the Cabinet will actually designate. Eid Al Fitr 2026 is the clean example — the private-sector holiday was announced as 19 to 21 March, with the fourth day added only if Ramadan ran to thirty days, a question settled by the sighting on the evening of 18 March.

And now a second layer of movement

Since 1 January 2025 there is a rule that shifts dates for a different reason. The Cabinet may transfer a public holiday — with the exception of Eid Al Fitr and Eid Al Adha — to the beginning or the end of the working week. There are two carve-outs written into the official rule: a holiday cannot be transferred when it coincides with another public holiday, or when it already falls on the weekend.

Which 2026 public holidays are left?

Three days, across two occasions. As of 22 August 2026, everything before August is spent, and what remains is Friday 28 August and Wednesday 2 to Thursday 3 December. Nine of the year's twelve private-sector days fell between January and June.

That front-loading matters for anyone planning a hiring round, a licence renewal or a product launch. The stretch from 15 June to 28 August contained no public holiday at all — ten and a half weeks, in the hottest part of the Dubai year — and the stretch from 30 August to 2 December contains none either. The UAE's holidays are not spread evenly, and neither is the disruption they cause.

Is Friday 28 August 2026 a public holiday in the UAE?

Yes. The UAE Government Media Office announced on 7 August 2026 that Friday 28 August 2026 would be a paid public holiday for both the federal government and the private sector, marking the Prophet Mohammed's birthday. For anyone on the standard Saturday–Sunday weekend that is a three-day break, 28 to 30 August.

Why it moved from Tuesday to Friday

12 Rabi' Al Awwal, the Hijri date the holiday is set against, was expected to fall on Tuesday 25 August 2026. Under the transfer legislation in force since January 2025 the Cabinet moved the day off to the end of the working week instead. That is the whole explanation, and it is worth knowing because it means a calendar app that computes Islamic holidays from the Hijri date will be three days out. Several 2026 wall planners printed the 25th.

The practical consequence for a small team: if you booked client meetings for Tuesday 25 August on the assumption of a day off, they are working days. If you booked them for Friday 28 August, they are not.

Do private-sector staff get the same days as government employees?

The list is identical; the length of the Eid blocks has not been. The official page is unambiguous on the principle: "Following is the list of public holidays applicable to both, public and private sectors." Every one of the seven occasions belongs to a private-sector employee as much as to a federal one.

In practice, the 2026 Eid announcements were not symmetrical:

Eid Al Fitr dates from the MOHRE and FAHR announcements for Eid Al Fitr 2026; Eid Al Adha from the Eid Al Adha 2026 announcement.

Two days over a year is not a scandal, but it is the single most common source of confusion in a mixed team — and it is why a founder with staff on private-sector contracts should read the MOHRE line of an announcement, not the FAHR one.

Is 1 December a day off in the UAE in 2026?

It is not on the official list, and that is the honest answer. The u.ae public holidays page sets out Cabinet Resolution No. 27 of 2024 and names National Day on 2 to 3 December with no separate December holiday beside it. Commemoration Day appears nowhere in that list.

Press coverage does not agree with itself either. Some outlets place Commemoration Day on Sunday 30 November, some on 1 December, and some describe it as observed rather than granted. We could not find a 2026 Cabinet announcement making it a day off in either position.

What to do with that: plan for 1 December 2026 as a working Tuesday, and treat any extra day as a bonus if it is announced. Building a client commitment on a holiday that has not been declared is the expensive mistake here — not the reverse.

How much notice do you actually get before a UAE public holiday?

About three weeks, on the one 2026 case we can date precisely. The Prophet's birthday holiday was announced on 7 August for 28 August: 21 days. For the Islamic holidays that depend on a sighting, the confirmation of the exact block can come within days — Eid Al Fitr's fourth private-sector day hung on the evening of 18 March for a holiday that started on the 19th.

Only two of the seven are known a year in advance: New Year's Day and National Day. If your business runs on booked appointments — clinics, law firms, anyone selling billable hours — that is the planning constraint to internalise. Five sevenths of the UAE holiday calendar firms up inside a month.

What closes over a public holiday, and where can you still work?

Government service centres and most corporate offices close; the digital channels and the private workspace sector do not. Dubai's government departments publish their own holiday timings each time, so the reliable move is to check the department's own channel in the days before rather than assume last year's pattern.

What we can tell you about our side of it

Members reach their desk with a badge 24 hours a day, seven days a week, public holidays included. Our front desk runs Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm — that is the human presence, not the access. The two are separate, and confusing them is the most common misreading of a coworking listing in Dubai.

If you are not a member and need somewhere to work on a holiday, a day pass is 120 AED for a hot desk and 200 AED for a dedicated desk, VAT added at checkout. A coworking membership is 950 AED a month. Rooms for up to eight people are 120 AED an hour. Meeting-room hours included with a subscription are one hour a month on coworking, four on a dedicated desk and six on a private office — they belong to the monthly plans, not to day passes.

The Downtown detail nobody plans for

Eid Al Etihad turns Downtown Dubai into an event site: the fireworks draw crowds toward Burj Khalifa and the surrounding car parks fill early. If you intend to work from our Downtown address on 2 or 3 December, arrive before the lunch-hour surge — we wrote a separate guide to parking in Downtown Dubai that covers which lobbies fill first. Business Bay is calmer on those two days, and the Design District opens on 1 October 2026.

Do licence, visa and Ejari deadlines move because of a holiday?

No. Nothing in Cabinet Resolution No. 27 of 2024 extends an administrative deadline because a public holiday falls inside it — the resolution designates days off, it does not stop clocks. A trade licence that expires on 3 December expires on 3 December, and a visa's grace period counts calendar days.

What a holiday does change is throughput. If a step in your file needs a human at a counter — a typing centre, a notary, an attestation, a medical fitness test — that step cannot happen on a closed day, and the queue on the day after a four-day Eid block is not the queue on an ordinary Tuesday. The rule of thumb worth adopting: count backwards from the deadline in working days, then add two for the reopening surge.

Where this bites hardest

It bites on renewals with a fixed expiry and a physical step. Trade licence renewals, Ejari registrations tied to a tenancy anniversary, and residence visas for staff are the three we see most often. If you are setting up rather than renewing, the sequencing matters more than the calendar — our guide to the freelance visa route in Dubai walks through the order the steps have to happen in, and a virtual office with Ejari at 8,000 AED a year is the address most of those files need before anything else can move.

What are you owed if you have to work on a public holiday?

A replacement rest day, or your normal wage plus at least fifty per cent of your basic wage for that day. The UAE Government's page on types of leave in the private sector puts it directly: a private-sector employee is entitled to paid leave on public holidays, and one required to work on a holiday must be given "another rest day or be paid for that day, a wage as he would be paid on a normal day plus an addition of at least 50 per cent on his basic wage". The provision sits in Article 28 of the UAE Labour Law.

Two things founders get wrong here. The choice between the day off and the money belongs to the employer, not the employee. And the fifty per cent uplift is calculated on the basic wage, not the gross package — which is why the allowance split in a contract is worth getting right before a holiday rota is drawn up, not after.

How many leave days does it take to build a long weekend in 2026?

One, if you spend it in December. The two remaining 2026 holidays sit very differently on the week:

Assumes a Saturday–Sunday weekend, the standard private-sector pattern in the UAE since 2022.

The nine-day version is the one to book early if you want it: three days of leave, and the flights out of Dubai on the evening of Friday 27 November price accordingly. The five-day version costs a single day and is the better value by a distance.

FAQ: 10 quick answers

1. When is the next public holiday in the UAE? Friday 28 August 2026, for the Prophet Mohammed's birthday. The UAE Government Media Office announced it on 7 August 2026 for both the public and the private sector. Because it falls on a Friday, anyone on a Saturday–Sunday weekend gets three consecutive days off, 28 to 30 August. After that the next day off is Eid Al Etihad on Wednesday 2 December.

2. How many public holidays does the UAE have in 2026? Seven named holidays, which produced twelve announced days off for a private-sector employee in 2026 and fourteen for a federal government one. The seven are New Year's Day, Eid Al Fitr, Arafah Day, Eid Al Adha, the Hijri New Year, the Prophet's birthday and National Day. The count of days differs by sector because the Eid holidays were announced with different lengths for each.

3. What are the UAE public holidays in 2026, with dates? 1 January, 19–21 March (Eid Al Fitr), 26–29 May (Arafah Day and Eid Al Adha), 15 June (Hijri New Year), 28 August (Prophet's birthday) and 2–3 December (Eid Al Etihad). Those are the private-sector dates as announced. Federal government staff had a longer block at both Eids: 19–22 March and 25–29 May.

4. Are Dubai's public holidays different from the rest of the UAE? No. Public holidays are federal, set by Cabinet Resolution No. 27 of 2024 and applied across all seven emirates. Dubai does not publish a separate list. Individual Dubai government departments sometimes announce their own service timings around a holiday, but the days off themselves are the same in Dubai as in Abu Dhabi or Sharjah.

5. When is UAE National Day in 2026? Eid Al Etihad falls on Wednesday 2 and Thursday 3 December 2026. Unlike the Islamic holidays it is a fixed calendar date written into the Cabinet resolution, so it does not depend on a moon sighting and is known a year ahead. Falling midweek, it is the one 2026 holiday where a single day of annual leave buys a five-day break.

6. Is the Prophet's birthday a public holiday in the UAE? Yes, and it is one of the seven holidays on the official list, set at 12 Rabi' Al Awwal. In 2026 that Hijri date was expected to fall on Tuesday 25 August, but the day off was declared for Friday 28 August instead. The Cabinet has been able to move non-Eid holidays to the start or end of the working week since January 2025.

7. Does the private sector get the same holidays as the government? The list is the same, but the length of the Eid blocks has not been. The u.ae public holidays page states plainly that the list applies to both the public and the private sectors. In practice, the 2026 announcements gave federal staff four days at Eid Al Fitr and five at Eid Al Adha, against three and four for private-sector employees.

8. Can the UAE move a public holiday to a different day? Yes, for every holiday except Eid Al Fitr and Eid Al Adha. Legislation in force since 1 January 2025 lets the Cabinet shift a midweek public holiday to the beginning or the end of the week. The official rule also says a holiday cannot be transferred when it coincides with another public holiday or already falls on the weekend.

9. Do I get paid if I work on a UAE public holiday? Yes, and you are owed compensation on top. Public holidays are paid leave in the private sector, and under Article 28 of the UAE Labour Law an employee required to work on one must be given another rest day, or be paid the normal daily wage plus at least 50 per cent of the basic wage for that day. The choice between the two rests with the employer.

10. Is 1 December a public holiday in the UAE? It is not on the official list. The u.ae public holidays page, which sets out Cabinet Resolution No. 27 of 2024, names National Day on 2–3 December and no separate December holiday. Commemoration Day is still marked, and press reports differ on whether it sits on 30 November or 1 December, so treat 1 December 2026 as a working day unless the Cabinet says otherwise.

The bottom line

Seven holidays, twelve announced days for a private-sector employee in 2026, and three of them still ahead: Friday 28 August, then Wednesday 2 and Thursday 3 December. The list is federal, it is the same in Dubai as everywhere else, and five of the seven dates are only ever provisional until an announcement lands — usually around three weeks out, sometimes less.

If the holiday you are planning around is 28 August, the useful question is not what closes but where you can still get an hour of quiet work done. Our three Dubai addresses run on badge access, every day of the year, and a day pass at 120 AED needs no contract and no notice. Come and see a floor before you need one.