Six New Zealand national public holidays can transfer from a weekend to a weekday. Five others are set for a Friday or Monday, so they do not need a weekend-transfer rule. In a standard Monday-to-Friday calendar, a transferred date replaces the weekend date as the public holiday; it does not create a second holiday.
The calculator includes the national observed dates automatically when Calendar days is off. The Region control adds a regional anniversary calendar separately.
Current-law note, 3 August 2026: this guide describes the Holidays Act 2003. The Employment Leave Bill passed its second reading on 21 July 2026 but has not taken effect. Employment New Zealand says the Holidays Act remains the current law; the replacement legislation is proposed to take effect in 2028.
Six holidays can transfer from a weekend
The transfer rules apply to holidays attached to six calendar dates:
- New Year's Day;
- 2 January;
- Waitangi Day;
- ANZAC Day;
- Christmas Day; and
- Boxing Day.
Good Friday, Easter Monday, King's Birthday, Matariki and Labour Day form the other group. Each is set for a weekday: Good Friday and Matariki are Fridays, while the other three are Mondays. There is no weekend date to transfer.
Regional anniversary days follow local observance conventions rather than these six statutory transfer rules. The regional anniversary guide explains those calendars.
The six holidays use two transfer mechanisms
For Waitangi Day and ANZAC Day, a Saturday or Sunday holiday is treated as falling on the following Monday where the weekend date would not otherwise be a working day for the employee.
The four Christmas and New Year holidays use a fixed weekday assignment:
| Weekend date | Transferred date |
|---|---|
| Saturday | The following Monday |
| Sunday | The following Tuesday |
This assignment can put the observed dates in a different order from their names. In 2023, 2 January remained on Monday 2 January, while New Year's Day was observed Tuesday 3 January. The Sunday rule moved New Year's Day to Tuesday; it did not move the 2 January holiday first.
Only ANZAC Day and Boxing Day transfer in 2026
The official 2026 table gives these actual and observed dates for the six transferable holidays:
| Holiday | Calendar date | Date used in a Monday-to-Friday count |
|---|---|---|
| New Year's Day | Thursday 1 January | Thursday 1 January |
| 2 January | Friday 2 January | Friday 2 January |
| Waitangi Day | Friday 6 February | Friday 6 February |
| ANZAC Day | Saturday 25 April | Monday 27 April |
| Christmas Day | Friday 25 December | Friday 25 December |
| Boxing Day | Saturday 26 December | Monday 28 December |
Only ANZAC Day and Boxing Day move. The 2026 public-holidays guide lists all 11 national holidays.
The observed weekday is counted once
For a Monday-to-Friday calculation, the actual Saturday is already outside the working week. The observed Monday is then excluded once as the public holiday. It should not be subtracted again after the calculator has applied it.
For example, run a Difference Mode calculation from Friday 24 April 2026 to Tuesday 28 April 2026. Select No Anniversary and No Shutdown. The result identifies Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 April as weekend dates, Monday 27 April as observed ANZAC Day, and Tuesday 28 April as the next ordinary working day.
The actual ANZAC Day and its observed date still have different historical and legal significance. For this working-day count, however, the weekend removes 25 April and the public-holiday calendar removes 27 April.
An employee's entitlement depends on their working pattern
The calendar example assumes a Monday-to-Friday week. Under the Holidays Act, an employee's public-holiday entitlement depends on whether the date would otherwise be a working day for that employee.
A weekend worker may therefore receive the entitlement on the actual Saturday or Sunday instead of the transferred weekday. An employee does not receive two public holidays for the actual and transferred dates. The person's roster, employment agreement and otherwise-working-day assessment supply information that the calculator does not hold.
Sources
Sources checked on 3 August 2026:
- Holidays Act 2003, sections 44, 45 and 45A — national public holidays, the Christmas and New Year transfer rules, and the Waitangi Day and ANZAC Day rule.
- Employment New Zealand: public holidays and anniversary dates — the 2026 actual and observed dates.
- Employment New Zealand: when a public holiday falls on a weekend — employee examples and the one-holiday limit.
- Employment New Zealand: Employment Leave Bill 2026 — confirmation that the Holidays Act remains current and that the replacement legislation is proposed to take effect in 2028.
- Te Kāhui o Matariki Public Holiday Act 2022 — the scheduled Friday dates for Matariki.
- New Zealand Parliament: Employment Leave Bill — current parliamentary stage.
