The United Arab Emirates has around ten to fourteen public holiday days a year, and almost all of them move. Only three are fixed to the Gregorian calendar: New Year's Day on 1 January, Commemoration Day on 30 November and National Day on 2 and 3 December. Everything else follows the Islamic lunar calendar, shifting eleven days earlier each year, and the exact dates are confirmed only days beforehand by moon sighting. The UAE is also the only Gulf state to have moved its weekend to align with international markets.
The UAE Holiday Calendar
| Date | Holiday | Description |
|---|---|---|
| January 1 | New Year's Day | Public holiday; celebrations and fireworks, especially at Burj Khalifa |
| February 28 | Isra and Mi'raj (approx.) | Commemorates Muhammad's Night Journey; day of reflection |
| March 20-22 | Eid al-Fitr (approx.) | 3-day holiday; end of Ramadan; family gatherings and gift exchanges |
| May 27-30 | Eid al-Adha (approx.) | 4-day holiday; Festival of Sacrifice; animal sacrifice tradition |
| June 17 | Islamic New Year (approx.) | First day of Muharram; start of the Islamic calendar |
| August 16 | Mawlid al-Nabi (approx.) | Birthday of Prophet Muhammad |
| December 1 | Commemoration Day | Honours UAE's fallen soldiers and martyrs; established in 2015 |
| December 2-3 | National Day | Celebrates the founding of the UAE in 1971; massive celebrations |
The Weekend Changed in 2022
On 1 January 2022 the UAE moved from a Friday-Saturday weekend to Saturday-Sunday, with a half-day on Friday ending at noon for the public sector to allow for congregational prayers.
It was the first Gulf state to do so, and the stated reason was alignment with global financial markets — the previous arrangement left only three overlapping working days with Europe and the Americas. The private sector was permitted but not required to follow, and most large employers did.
Sharjah went further, moving its public sector to a four-day week with Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. The other emirates kept the four-and-a-half-day arrangement, so the UAE now has two different working weeks inside one federation.
The Moon Decides
Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, the Islamic new year, the Prophet's birthday and Isra and Mi'raj all follow the Hijri calendar. The UAE's official moon-sighting committee meets on the evening before the expected date and announces the result the same night.
That means employers, airlines and schools do not know the exact holiday dates until 24 to 48 hours in advance. The Cabinet publishes an indicative calendar at the start of each year with the caveat that the religious dates are subject to sighting.
Eid al-Fitr typically produces three or four days off and Eid al-Adha three or four including Arafat Day. When they fall favourably against the weekend the government sometimes extends them, producing breaks of five or six days.
National Day
2 December marks the federation of six emirates in 1971 — Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah — with Ras Al Khaimah joining in February 1972. The seventh emirate's later accession is not separately commemorated.
The holiday covers 2 and 3 December. Celebrations include fireworks across the emirates, a large official show in Abu Dhabi, and a national habit of decorating cars in the flag's colours and driving in convoy, which the police tolerate within limits.
The fiftieth anniversary in 2021 was marked with a substantially extended programme, and the Year of the Fiftieth ran across the whole year alongside the delayed Expo 2020 in Dubai.
Commemoration Day
30 November honours Emirati citizens who have died in service of the country, civil or military. It was established in 2015 and originally called Martyrs' Day, and it was renamed in 2019.
It was created following UAE casualties in the Yemen conflict, including 45 soldiers killed in a single incident in Marib in September 2015 — the largest loss of life in the country's military history.
The observance includes a minute of silence at 11.30am, flags at half-mast until noon, and a ceremony at Wahat Al Karama, a memorial in Abu Dhabi opposite the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque built of 31 aluminium-clad tablets leaning against each other.
Two Calendars in Everyday Use
The UAE uses the Gregorian calendar for civil and commercial purposes and the Hijri calendar for religious ones, and official documents frequently carry both. Emirates ID cards, court judgments and government correspondence often show a dual date.
The Hijri year is about 354 days, eleven shorter than the Gregorian, which means Islamic dates advance through the seasons and complete a cycle roughly every 33 years. Ramadan has fallen in the UAE's brutal summer through the 2010s and is moving back towards the cooler months.
That matters practically. A summer Ramadan means fasting through fifteen-hour days at temperatures above 45 degrees, and UAE labour rules on outdoor work in midsummer — a ban between 12.30pm and 3pm from mid-June to mid-September — interact with it directly.
The Emirates Do Not Always Agree
Public holidays in the UAE are set federally by Cabinet resolution and apply across all seven emirates, which is a change from earlier practice in which each emirate's ruler could declare days independently.
Some divergence remains at the emirate level for public-sector arrangements. Sharjah's four-day week is the largest example, and individual emirates occasionally declare local days for a ruler's accession anniversary or a period of mourning.
Free zones add a further layer. The Dubai International Financial Centre and Abu Dhabi Global Market operate their own employment law, and while both follow the national holiday list, their leave and working-hours provisions differ from the federal labour law in detail.
Ramadan Working Hours
Ramadan is not a holiday, but UAE labour law requires that working hours be reduced by two hours a day during the month for all employees, Muslim and non-Muslim, with no reduction in pay.
Eating, drinking and smoking in public during daylight hours was historically prohibited and could result in a fine. Enforcement has relaxed considerably: since 2021 restaurants have generally been permitted to serve during the day without screens, which had previously been required.
Iftar tents, charity meals and extended night trading hours are the visible features of the month. Shopping malls stay open past midnight, and business meetings shift to late evening.
Arafat Day
The day before Eid al-Adha is Arafat Day, marking the standing at Mount Arafat during the Hajj, and it is a separate public holiday in the UAE.
Several Gulf states observe it and many Muslim-majority countries elsewhere do not, which is one reason UAE holiday counts differ from Indonesian or Turkish ones for what are nominally the same festivals.
Eid al-Adha itself is marked by the sacrifice of livestock, distributed to family, neighbours and the poor. In the UAE this is regulated to licensed abattoirs, and charities offer proxy sacrifice services distributing the meat domestically or abroad.
Islamic New Year and the Prophet's Birthday
The first of Muharram, the Islamic new year, is a one-day public holiday. It is a quiet occasion in the UAE, with no equivalent of the celebration attached to the Gregorian new year.
The Prophet's birthday, Mawlid al-Nabi, on 12 Rabi al-Awwal, is also a one-day holiday. Observance varies across the Muslim world, and some strands of Salafi thought discourage it; the UAE marks it officially.
Isra and Mi'raj, marking the night journey and ascension, was a public holiday in the UAE until 2019 and was removed when the Cabinet standardised the holiday list. Several Gulf neighbours still observe it.
What Is Not a Holiday
The UAE has no public holidays for any non-Islamic religion, despite a population that is around 88% expatriate and includes very large Hindu, Christian, Buddhist and Sikh communities.
Christmas Day, Diwali, Vesak and Easter are all ordinary working days. Places of worship exist and are permitted — the Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi opened in 2024, and Dubai has churches, gurdwaras and a synagogue — and none of their festivals appears in the labour calendar.
The absence is standard across the Gulf. No GCC state has a public holiday for a non-Islamic religion, and the UAE's Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi, which opened in 2023 with a mosque, a church and a synagogue on one site, was presented as a statement about coexistence rather than as a step towards changing the calendar.
Many employers accommodate them informally through annual leave. Schools following Indian, British or American curricula set their own term dates and typically close for the relevant holidays.
What UAE Workers Get
Federal Decree-Law 33 of 2021, the current labour law, provides 30 calendar days of paid annual leave after one year of service, which is around 22 working days. Employees with six months to a year get two days per month.
Public holidays are paid, and an employee required to work one is entitled to a substitute day plus 50% of basic pay, or 150% of basic pay in lieu.
The 2021 law also introduced part-time, temporary and flexible work models, ended unlimited-term contracts, and revised end-of-service gratuity rules. It applies to the private sector across all emirates and to the free zones, with the Dubai International Financial Centre and Abu Dhabi Global Market operating their own employment regimes. For related context, see the countries where Arabic is official and the tallest building in Doha.