What Is a Government Holiday List?
A government holiday list is the official annual schedule of paid non-working days published by central and state authorities in India, and it dictates which days your employees get off with full pay. Only three holidays are mandatory across every single organisation in the country, whether public sector, private, or multinational: Republic Day on 26 January, Independence Day on 15 August, and Gandhi Jayanti on 2 October.
After those three, it gets messy. Your state government publishes a separate list under the local Shops and Establishments Act (usually 8 to 12 extra paid holidays), and the central government publishes yet another list through the Department of Personnel and Training for its own offices (17 gazetted holidays in 2026, plus restricted holidays where employees pick two). Private employers are bound by the state list, not the central one. Mixing up which list applies to you is probably the most common payroll mistake we see at Petpooja across 30,000+ clients, and it happens every January when someone downloads the wrong PDF.
What Are the Different Types of Government Holidays?
Four categories. They overlap in ways that confuse even experienced HR managers.
| Type | Who Declares It | Who Must Follow | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| National holidays | Central government | Every employer in India, no exceptions | Republic Day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti |
| Gazetted holidays | Central government (DoPT) | Central govt offices; private sector follows state list instead | Holi, Diwali, Eid, Christmas, Buddha Purnima |
| State holidays | State govt under Shops & Establishments Act | All shops, commercial establishments, and factories in that state | Gudi Padwa (Maharashtra), Pongal (Tamil Nadu), Bihu (Assam) |
| Restricted holidays | Central government | Central govt employees only; they choose 2 from the list | Regional festivals, minority observances |
Here is the part that trips up multi-location businesses. A garment showroom in Baner, Pune follows Maharashtra’s Shops Act: roughly sixteen paid holidays. The same company’s cloud kitchen in Whitefield, Bangalore follows Karnataka’s version: twelve to fifteen, with only partial festival overlap. Payroll runs from one office. The holiday calendars do not match. And every October, when Navratri dates differ by a day between states, somebody’s salary slip gets it wrong.
How Does the Government Holiday List Affect Payroll?
It touches paid leave balances, overtime wages, and attendance marking. All three.
When an employee works on a declared state holiday, most states require double wages plus a compensatory off within 30 to 90 days. Maharashtra and Kerala mandate both; it is not a pick-one situation. A hospital in Thane running nurses through October 2025 (Navratri falls, then Dussehra, then Diwali, all within six weeks) owed comp-offs to nearly 40% of the floor staff by November. The leave management system had to track each day individually because some nurses worked two holidays and others worked four.
The quieter problem is misclassification. Payroll treats a state holiday as a normal working day. Employee shows up, gets single pay. Nobody catches it. Three months later the admin reconciles attendance against the gazette list, discovers the error, and now a retail chain with 80 staff owes back-pay across three states. We have seen this exact situation twice in the last year with Attendo (formerly Petpooja Payroll) clients who had not updated their holiday calendar after the state gazette came out late in February.
How Many Government Holidays Does Each State Mandate?
Depends on the state and the year. Lunar calendar festivals shift dates annually, so the count is never fixed.
| State | Approximate Paid Holidays (Including 3 National) |
|---|---|
| Maharashtra | 15 to 18 |
| Karnataka | 12 to 15 |
| Tamil Nadu | 14 to 16 |
| Gujarat | 12 to 14 |
| Delhi | 10 to 12 |
Most state governments publish their updated list in January. Some drag it to February. Gujarat published its 2025 list on 14 January; Maharashtra’s came out nearly three weeks later. If you finalise your payroll calendar before the notification drops, you will be correcting it mid-quarter. Not a hypothetical.
How Attendo Handles Government Holiday Lists
Attendo lets managers configure a separate holiday calendar for each state and each outlet. Clock in on a declared holiday, the system tags it as a holiday shift and fires the applicable pay rule (double wages, comp-off credit, or both). Multi-state chains use separate profiles per location so attendance records stay clean without someone manually editing salary slips on the 28th.
Frequently Asked Questions
Almost, but the legal definitions differ. “Public holiday” comes from Section 25 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 and it mainly governs when banks close. “Government holiday” covers gazetted days, restricted days, and state-declared festivals. In practice nobody distinguishes between the two until a compliance audit forces the issue.
The central gazetted list? Yes. It binds central government offices, not private employers. Your obligation as a private business comes from the state Shops and Establishments Act. The three national holidays are the one exception that applies to absolutely everyone.
State law decides. In Maharashtra, the employer owes double wages and a compensatory off, both mandatory. Other states let you pick one. The comp-off must happen within 30 to 90 days depending on jurisdiction, and missing that window is technically non-compliance even if the employee does not raise it.
Three. Republic Day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti. Everything beyond that is state-specific, ranging from 8 to 15 additional paid holidays per year under the relevant Shops and Establishments Act.
Legally, yes. The Contract Labour Act, 1970 entitles them to holidays per the principal employer’s standing orders. On the ground, daily-wage construction workers and temporary factory hands rarely get them. The law does not exempt these workers; enforcement just does not reach them consistently.
No. That is a central government concept only. Some MNCs offer a few restricted holidays as optional choices for staff, which is a nice perk but carries zero legal obligation.
