By paid national public holidays, Cambodia and Iran share first place with 27 days a year each, and Lebanon is third with 22, according to the paid-public-holiday column of Wikipedia’s List of minimum annual leave by country as it stood in 2026, a table compiled largely from International Labour Organization (ILO) labour-law data. Sri Lanka (20), Argentina and Azerbaijan (19 each) complete the next tier. The ranking changes with the counting method: Nepal’s government declares about 35 holiday days for its offices, but some of them apply only to particular regions, religions or groups, so the labour-law count gives Nepal 13. This article reads the list region by region, naming the global leaders first and then each continent’s leader.
Cambodia and Iran: the 27-day leaders and how the count works
The table counts days on which employees are legally entitled to a paid holiday nationwide. It leaves out regional holidays, optional days that employees may pick from a list, and days that are commemorated but remain working days. It also counts days, not festivals, so a three-day festival adds three. That rule does much of the work at the top: Cambodia’s Khmer New Year in mid-April, Pchum Ben (the festival for ancestors in September or October) and the Water Festival in October or November each run for three days, nine days between them.
| Rank | Country | Paid public holidays per year | Region |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1= | Cambodia | 27 | Southeast Asia |
| 1= | Iran | 27 | Middle East |
| 3 | Lebanon | 22 | Middle East |
| 4 | Sri Lanka | 20 | South Asia |
| 5= | Argentina | 19 | South America |
| 5= | Azerbaijan | 19 | Caucasus |
| 7= | Colombia | 18 | South America |
| 7= | Indonesia | 18 | Southeast Asia |
| 7= | Suriname | 18 | South America |
| 10= | Egypt, Romania, South Korea, Tanzania | 17 | Africa, Europe, East Asia |
Two caveats matter for the leaders. Cambodia’s calendar has been trimmed: the national holiday table in Wikipedia’s article on Cambodian public holidays now lists 16 observances covering about 22 days, from Victory over Genocide Day on 7 January to Peace Day on 29 December, which would leave it level with Lebanon rather than top. Iran runs the other way. Its own holiday article counts 28 days, and the table notes that Iran works a six-day week, so its weekends are half as long as in most countries. In 2008 the government’s English-language paper Iran Daily complained that once unofficial days declared to extend weekends were added to the weekends themselves, the country was on holiday for almost half the year. Hong Kong, a territory rather than a country, would sit at 17.
South and Southeast Asia: Sri Lanka’s full moons, Indonesia’s joint leave and Nepal’s gazette
Asia is the regional leader overall, and its holiday calendars are long for the same reason: several religious calendars running side by side, many of them lunar. Cambodia leads the region on the labour-law count. Its holidays mix Buddhist festivals such as Visak Bochea (the Buddha’s birthday) and the Royal Ploughing Ceremony with royal anniversaries, including King Norodom Sihamoni’s birthday on 14 May and his coronation day on 29 October, and political dates such as Independence Day on 9 November, marking independence from France in 1953. For the religious background, see our guide to religion in Cambodia.
Sri Lanka, fourth globally with 20 days, owes its total to the moon. Every full moon is a Poya day, the Sri Lankan observance of the Buddhist Uposatha, and each is a civil and bank holiday on which shops and businesses generally close and the sale of alcohol and meat is banned. A year holds 13 or 14 of them, before Hindu, Muslim and Christian festivals are added. Vesak, the full moon of May, is the biggest, when towns build illuminated pandols, and the Sinhala and Tamil New Year in mid-April adds further days shared by the island’s two largest communities.
Indonesia reaches 18 in the ILO-based table, but its own count is higher: on top of the fixed national holidays, the government declares “cuti bersama”, joint leave days attached to holidays such as Eid al-Fitr, bringing the total to about 20 a year. Details are in our guide to public holidays in Indonesia. South Korea, with 17, builds its list around two three-day lunar festivals, Seollal (Lunar New Year) and Chuseok, the harvest festival when families travel to their ancestral hometowns.
Nepal is the case that shows how much the method matters. The government publishes its holidays each year in the Nepal Gazette and granted a nationwide holiday of 35 days in the Nepal Sambat year 1142, with Vijaya Dashami alone bringing seven consecutive days off. But some of those days apply only to a region, religion or gender (the Teej holiday is for women only), private businesses are not required to close, and the labour-law table counts 13. India shows the opposite pattern: only three holidays are national by law, Republic Day (26 January), Independence Day (15 August) and Gandhi Jayanti (2 October), and the states add the rest.
The Middle East and Caucasus: Nowruz in Tehran and Baku, and Lebanon’s double calendar
The region’s leader is Iran, which runs three calendars at once: the Solar Hijri calendar for national dates, the lunar Islamic calendar for religious holidays, whose Gregorian dates move about 11 days earlier each year, and the Gregorian calendar for international ones. The new year does the heavy lifting. The first four days of the month of Farvardin (about 21 to 24 March) are Nowruz holidays, Islamic Republic Day follows on 12 Farvardin, and Sizdah Bedar, the day families spend outdoors, closes the season on 13 Farvardin.
Lebanon, third worldwide with 22 days, gets there by observing the holidays of both its Christian and Muslim communities. Both the Western and Eastern dates of Easter are holidays, as are Christmas on 25 December and Epiphany together with Armenian Christmas on 6 January, alongside the Day of Ashura and the Eid festivals. The Feast of the Annunciation on 25 March is observed by Christians and Muslims together. Azerbaijan, joint fifth with 19, gives five days, 20 to 24 March, to Novruz, and its only religious holidays are two days each for Ramazan Bayramı (Eid al-Fitr) and Qurban Bayramı (Eid al-Adha).
The Americas: Argentina’s bridge days, Colombia’s Monday rule and Mexico’s seven
South America leads the Western Hemisphere. Argentina, with 19, guarantees 15 paid public holidays and each year the government adds “bridge holidays” that join a holiday to a weekend. Movable holidays that fall on a Tuesday or Wednesday shift to the previous Monday, and those on a Thursday to Sunday shift to the following Monday. The national dates include the May Revolution on 25 May, Flag Day on 20 June and Independence Day on 9 July.
Colombia (18 in the table) has had a similar law since 1983, under which 10 of its holidays are movable and are observed on the following Monday when they fall on another day. Its own count is 19, 13 Catholic and 6 civic, with Barranquilla adding two days for Carnival and Cartagena a week around 11 November. Suriname matches Colombia at 18; with no majority ethnic group and large Christian, Hindu and Muslim communities, it keeps holidays from several faiths.
North America sits near the bottom. The United States has 11 federal holidays, but these bind only federal offices, and no national law requires private employers to pay for them, so the labour-law table counts zero. Mexico’s labour law guarantees 7 paid public holidays, among them 1 January, 1 May, 16 September (Independence Day) and 25 December, and Canada’s count varies from 7 to 13 by province.
Africa, Europe and Oceania: Egypt, Romania and Kiribati lead
In Africa, Egypt and Tanzania share the lead at 17. Egypt’s calendar has four Islamic and two Christian holidays alongside national dates such as Revolution Day on 23 July, which marks the 1952 revolution. Tanzania’s holidays are set by the Public Holidays Act, amended as recently as July 2022. Mauritius, close behind at 16, gives days off for Thaipoosam Cavadee, Maha Shivaratri, the Chinese Spring Festival, Eid, Ganesh Chaturthi and Diwali, as well as the Abolition of Slavery and the Arrival of Indentured Labourers.
Europe’s leader is Romania with 17 days, a list that now includes Epiphany on 6 January and the feast of St John the Baptist on 7 January as well as the Orthodox Easter and Pentecost holidays. Montenegro has 16. Western Europe is thinner: Germany’s nationwide count is 10, and the United Kingdom records zero because workers have no statutory right to take bank holidays off as such: the 28 days of paid leave every employee receives often include them, and most employers simply allow the day. England and Wales have eight bank holidays, set under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971, the successor to the Bank Holidays Act 1871 that created the term. For comparison with a large European country, see our guide to public holidays in Germany.
Oceania’s leader is Kiribati with 16, a calendar built around a three-day break each July: Gospel Day on 10 July, National Culture and Senior Citizens Day on 11 July and National Day on 12 July, the anniversary of independence from the United Kingdom in 1979. Australia’s employees get 10 to 13 days depending on the state or territory, and New Zealand’s national law sets 12.