New Zealand public holidays and school holidays

About Kiwi Calendar

Kiwi Calendar is a free reference site for New Zealand public holidays, provincial anniversary days, and school term dates. Every date on the site comes from a primary source — the legislation itself for nationwide and provincial holidays, and the Ministry of Education's published term dates for schools — and we link to the source on every page so you can verify what we publish.

How New Zealand's public holiday system works

The Holidays Act 2003 sets out the eleven nationwide public holidays that every New Zealand worker is entitled to: New Year's Day, the Day after New Year's Day, Waitangi Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, King's Birthday, Matariki, Labour Day, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day. Six of those — the two New Year days, Waitangi Day, Anzac Day, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day — are mondayised: if they fall on a weekend, the public holiday transfers to the following Monday or Tuesday so workers don't lose the day. The dates for Good Friday and Easter Monday move each year because they follow the Western Christian calendar, and Matariki is set by the Te Kāhui o Matariki Public Holiday Commission under separate 2022 legislation, with each year's date announced months in advance.

On top of those eleven, every worker also observes one provincial anniversary day, set under section 44 of the Holidays Act. There are twelve statutory anniversary days — Wellington, Auckland, Nelson, Taranaki, Otago, Southland, South Canterbury, Hawke's Bay, Marlborough, Canterbury, Westland, and Chatham Islands — each tied to a 19th-century province. Most are observed on the Monday closest to a historic date, but a few follow unique rules. Which anniversary day you observe depends on where you work, not where you live.

School holidays in New Zealand

State and state-integrated schools follow a four-term year set by the Ministry of Education. Term 1 runs from late January or early February to mid-April, with the Term 1 break covering Easter and the school holidays through to late April. Terms 2 and 3 are separated by mid-year breaks of around two weeks each, and Term 4 ends in mid-December, opening into the long summer break. Each individual school can vary the exact start and end days within the Ministry's recommended window, so the dates we publish are the national framework — your school's office will confirm the specific days for your child's school.

How we keep the data accurate

Every public holiday and school term date on Kiwi Calendar is checked against the relevant primary source before it goes live. For public holidays we use the Holidays Act 2003 and employment.govt.nz; for the Matariki date each year we use the announcement from the Te Kāhui o Matariki commission; for anniversary days we use section 44 of the Act and the official rule for each region. School term dates come straight from the Ministry of Education's annual term dates publication. When a date is announced but not yet officially confirmed (which sometimes happens for future years), we mark it as estimated until the source is published. Spotted something that looks wrong? The contact page has details — we fix errors quickly.