Korean public holidays

Korean public holidays are set by decree, and some of them are fixed dates. Liberation Day is always 15 August. Christmas is always 25 December. So they drift through the week and some years they land on a Saturday.

A holiday on a Saturday does not add a weekday off if your schedule already excludes Saturdays. That is why the count on a calendar and the count of days you actually rest are different numbers.

In 2026 there are 21 holidays on the calendar and 15 weekday public holidays. This count assumes Saturdays and Sundays are already days off.

For travel planning, check the weekday total and the dates. A year with 21 holidays can provide fewer additional days off than a year with fewer listed holidays, if more overlap with weekends.

When a qualifying holiday overlaps a weekend, the next working day becomes a holiday instead — a substitute holiday (대체공휴일).

It does not apply to every holiday. The decree lists which ones qualify. Seollal and Chuseok have had it longest, and it was extended to Independence Movement Day, Liberation Day, National Foundation Day, Hangeul Day, Children’s Day and Buddha’s Birthday.

The rule is also stricter for Seollal and Chuseok than people assume: the substitute is given when one of the three days falls on Sunday, not Saturday. For the single-day holidays a Saturday clash does earn a substitute.

In 2026 there are 4 substitute holidays. The calculator above marks them in the list.

Seollal and Chuseok are each three days long — the day itself plus the day before and the day after. Adjacent weekends can extend the break.

Both follow the lunar calendar, so they move through the solar year. Seollal falls in late January or February; Chuseok in September or October. That is also why their length changes from year to year depending on which weekday the middle day lands on.

For example, Chuseok 2028 runs Sep 30 to Oct 9 — 10 days without taking any leave, because National Foundation Day and Hangeul Day fall on either side of it.

If you plan to travel during a holiday period, check transport availability and booking dates separately.

The rules come from the Regulations on Public Holidays for Government Offices. The name matters: it is written for public offices, and private employers follow it because labour law now requires them to.

Election days are public holidays too, but only the ones actually scheduled. National elections are known years ahead; by-elections are not. This calculator leaves them out rather than guess.

One-off holidays (임시공휴일) are also excluded. The government sometimes declares an extra day to bridge a gap — often announced only weeks beforehand. They cannot be included before they are announced.

The table shows the rules included in this calculator. Your actual days off also depend on your employer and work schedule.

From 2026, Labour Day and Constitution Day are public holidays.

Labour Day (1 May) was already a paid day off for employees under a separate law, but it was not a public holiday — so public offices worked and schools opened. Constitution Day (17 July) had been a holiday until 2007 and has now come back.

Sundays are public holidays under the same decree. A named holiday on a Sunday therefore overlaps with another public holiday; the substitute rules determine whether an extra day is added.

For a baby’s hundredth day or a couple’s milestone, the 100-day calculator counts the starting date as day one.