Japan public holidays 2026

Japan’s public holiday system is law-governed; when adjacent holidays and substitution rules (振替休日) apply, the civil calendar the government publishes is the authority. The JP entries from Nager Public Holidays (date.nager.at) for the selected country code are expected to line up with that public schedule for the year you are viewing, but you should not use them as legal proof in a labor dispute without the official table.

Golden Week, Silver Week, and the New Year string are classic travel-load periods; even when the data shows a single Monday holiday, the whole block may feel like a long break because of other adjacent dates in the same week or substitute rules for that year. Plan flights and hotel bookings against the full cluster, not a single row name.

Banks, post offices, and many shops publish their own year-end and New Year hours. If a row looks like “substitute” or “振替” in a Japanese source, the English name in the API may be shorter: trust the local kanji list if a flight or a closing depends on it.

Company calendars in Japan often add 年末年始 shutdowns, company founding days, or summer company holidays that never appear in a national public-holiday API. Schools add 夏休み and 冬休み windows that are separate from 祝日. Use this page to see which weekdays the nation treats as holidays; use your employer handbook and school board for the rest.