Public holidays in South Africa, 2025
South Africa has 13 public holidays in 2025. 11 fall on a working day and 2 on a weekend — which is the number that decides how many days off you actually get.
13 of 13 holidays
- 01 01 New Year's Day Wednesday
- 21 03 Human Rights Day Friday
- 18 04 Good Friday Friday
- 21 04 Family Day Monday
- 27 04 Freedom Day Sunday · falls on a weekend
- 28 04 Public Holiday Monday
- 01 05 Workers' Day Thursday
- 16 06 Youth Day Monday
- 09 08 National Women's Day Saturday · falls on a weekend
- 24 09 Heritage Day Wednesday
- 16 12 Day of Reconciliation Tuesday
- 25 12 Christmas Day Thursday
- 26 12 Day of Goodwill Friday
2025 at a glance
Every day of the year. Filled squares are public holidays; the pale ones are weekends. A holiday touching a weekend is a long one.
Holidays you have, and days off you get
These are the two different questions this page answers. A country can have a long list of public holidays and still give you fewer days away from work than a neighbour with a shorter list, purely because of which weekday they fall on. Only some countries substitute a weekday when a holiday lands on a weekend; where they do not, the holiday simply passes.
Sources and last check
Times, offsets and sun positions on this page are computed live from the IANA timezone database and the NOAA solar algorithm, so they do not depend on the review dates below.
- Public holidays for 120 countries, 2025-2028
- Source: date-holidays, generated by scripts/build-holidays.mjs. Last checked, reviewed every 12 months.
Not covered:Public holidays only, including statutory substitute days; regional and observance days are excluded. 21 of our countries are not in the dataset and have no calendar. Regenerate on every date-holidays upgrade: the 25 July build silently lacked Korea's substitute days because the installed package predated them. Known upstream gap: El Salvador — the source lists 8 public days where Nager.Date confirms ~20, and files New Year's Day as an observance; we publish what the source holds rather than invent, and the weekly Nager run tracks the gap.
FAQ
How many public holidays does South Africa have in 2025?
13, of which 11 fall on a working day and 2 on a weekend.
Why does it matter which fall on a weekend?
Because a holiday on a Saturday is a holiday you do not get. 2 of South Africa's land on one, and most countries do not move them.