Bahrain public holidays
Bahrain's official public holidays for calendar year 2026. Under Article 64 of the Labour Law for the Private Sector (Law No. 36 of 2012), workers are entitled to full pay on the feasts and official occasions DETERMINED BY A RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS on the Minister's proposal — the list is set by Cabinet decision, not fixed in the statute. Four are fixed-Gregorian (New Year, Labour Day, National Day over two days); the rest are Hijri and move roughly 11 days earlier each Gregorian year, subject to moon sighting.
| Current value | 8 days held |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2026-01-01 |
| In force until | 2026-12-31 |
| Official source | Central Bank of Bahrain — Official Bank Holidays 2026: New Year's Day 1 Jan; Eid Al Fitr 1447 20-22 Mar; Labour Day 1 May; Eid Al Adha 1447 27-29 May; Al Hijra New Year 1448 16 Jun; Ashoora 1448 24-25 Jun; Prophet's Birthday 1448 25 Aug; National Day 16-17 Dec. The page carries the CBB's own caveat that 'All Islamic holidays are subject to confirmation at the time' |
| Last verified | 2026-07-24 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
Fourteen holiday DAYS across eight occasions. The served dates are the FIRST day of each occasion; multi-day spans are stated in each name. The list is the Central Bank of Bahrain's published Official Bank Holidays for 2026 — a Bahraini government regulator publishing the calendar it applies to the licensed banking sector, and the cleanest machine-readable official list available; it matches the standard Bahraini holiday set (New Year, Eid Al Fitr 3 days, Labour Day, Eid Al Adha 3 days, Al Hijra 1 day, Ashoora 2 days on 9-10 Muharram, Prophet's Birthday 1 day, National Day 2 days). STATUTORY BASIS: Article 64 of Law 36/2012 gives private-sector workers full pay on official holidays fixed by Council of Ministers resolution; an employer may require work on such a day, in which case the worker chooses between the day's wage plus an additional 150% of that wage, or a substitute day off; and if an official holiday coincides with a Friday or another official holiday the worker is compensated with another day. MOON SIGHTING: the five Hijri occasions are confirmed by official sighting typically 24-48 hours ahead and can shift by a day; the CBB itself flags them as subject to confirmation. Eid Al Fitr 1447 was in the event confirmed to begin Friday 20 March 2026 and Eid Al Adha 1447 on Wednesday 27 May 2026, matching the CBB calendar. PUBLIC-SECTOR SPANS DIFFER AND ARE DO NOT SERVE AS FACT: HRH the Crown Prince and Prime Minister issues a separate holiday circular for ministries and public institutions, which for 2026 was reported to run Eid Al Fitr from Fri 20 to Tue 23 March (work resuming Wed 24 March) and Eid Al Adha from Tue 26 May — adding Arafah day — to Fri 29 May with a compensatory day on Sun 31 May (work resuming Mon 1 June). Those circulars are published by the Bahrain News Agency (bna.bh), which sits behind a human-verification CAPTCHA and could not be read from this location; the spans above come from press reporting only and are NOT served. NOT public holidays in Bahrain: Christmas, Easter, and any Gregorian weekend observance — the weekend is Friday-Saturday. ACCESS NOTES for the source-watcher: cbb.gov.bh/official-bank-holidays is plain HTML and fetchable, and is republished each December for the following year — that is the page to re-read. bna.bh (and beta.bna.bh) are effectively unfetchable: CAPTCHA wall and CloudFront errors respectively. bahrain.bh does not publish a consolidated official holiday page; its calendar module carries events, not holidays.
Get it programmatically
curl https://mearef.dev/v1/bh/public-holidays
# Free.
# History: curl https://mearef.dev/v1/bh/public-holidays/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://mearef.dev/provenance/bh/public-holidaysOther Bahrain series: policy interest rate · VAT rate · minimum wage · inflation rate (CPI) · corporate tax rate · income tax rates