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Singapore has 11 paid public holiday days in 2026. Three of them land on a Sunday and one lands on a Saturday, which is where most of the confusion starts, because a holiday that falls on a weekend does not simply disappear.
This guide gives you the 2026 calendar exactly as MOM published it, the three Mondays that come back in lieu, what happens to the Saturday one, and how many working days the year leaves. Every rule below is cited to MOM or to the Employment Act 1968, with the section number.
We are an Employer of Record, and we run payroll in Singapore through our own local entity, so the second half of this page is written for the people who have to pay for all of it.
Employees covered by the Employment Act are entitled to 11 paid public holidays in Singapore in 2026. MOM’s 2026 calendar lists ten holidays because Chinese New Year runs across two consecutive days, so the day count is 11 and the holiday count is ten. Both numbers are correct, which is why they get quoted against each other.
| Date | Day | Public holiday | What it means on a five-day week |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 1 | Thursday | New Year’s Day | Paid holiday |
| February 17 | Tuesday | Chinese New Year | Paid holiday |
| February 18 | Wednesday | Chinese New Year | Paid holiday |
| March 21 | Saturday | Hari Raya Puasa | Non-working day. A day off in substitution, or an extra day’s gross pay |
| April 3 | Friday | Good Friday | Paid holiday |
| May 1 | Friday | Labour Day | Paid holiday |
| May 27 | Wednesday | Hari Raya Haji | Paid holiday |
| May 31 | Sunday | Vesak Day | Rest day. Monday, June 1, becomes the paid holiday |
| August 9 | Sunday | National Day | Rest day. Monday, August 10, becomes the paid holiday |
| November 8 | Sunday | Deepavali | Rest day. Monday, November 9, becomes the paid holiday |
| December 25 | Friday | Christmas Day | Paid holiday |
Dates as gazetted, from MOM’s public holidays for 2026, read September 22, 2026. Weekend treatment per the Employment Act 1968, section 88(1).
Hari Raya Puasa and Hari Raya Haji follow the Islamic lunar calendar, so MOM announced both 2026 dates as subject to confirmation. Both holidays have now passed, and MOM’s calendar shows them on the dates above.
Part-time employees are entitled to public holidays too, pro-rated against the hours a comparable full-time employee works. MOM sets out the part-time entitlement formula, and it also allows the entitlement to be encashed into the hourly gross rate of pay where the contract of service says so.
Section 88 of the Employment Act does not mention Saturdays or Sundays. It talks about rest days and non-working days, and it treats them differently.
On a standard five-day week, MOM’s own worked example is that Saturday is the non-working day and Sunday is the rest day. If you work a different pattern, substitute your own.
Section 88(1)(b) of the Employment Act says that if a public holiday falls on a rest day, the working day next following that rest day is a paid holiday. Three 2026 holidays fall on a Sunday, so on a five-day week that produces three extra Mondays off:
MOM states each of these conditionally, in the form “Monday, 1 June 2026, will be a public holiday if your rest day falls on 31 May 2026.” If Sunday is not your rest day, the Monday is not automatically yours.
Section 88(1)(c) covers a public holiday that lands on a day the employee is not required to work under the contract of service. In that case, the employer has a choice: pay one extra day’s salary at the gross rate of pay, or give a day off in substitution.
In 2026, the Saturday holiday was Hari Raya Puasa on March 21. On a five-day Monday to Friday week, Saturday is the non-working day, so you get either an extra day of gross pay or a day off in substitution. The employer makes that choice, and it belongs in the holiday policy.
Section 88(1)(a) lets an employer and an employee agree that any other day is substituted for a public holiday. It needs the employee’s agreement, so put any swap for Deepavali, Christmas Day, or a 2027 holiday in writing before the holiday itself.
MOM’s own table of working days, published for calculating pay for an incomplete month, sums to 261 for 2026 across its twelve monthly rows on a five-day week, because it includes public holidays that fall on a normal working day. Net of public holidays, our count for a Monday to Friday week works out like this:
The answer to “how many working days in Singapore in 2026” is 250 or 251 on a five-day week, net of public holidays, and one employer decision sets which. Six-day weeks, shift patterns, and rosters with a non-Sunday rest day all come out differently, because the rest-day rule in section 88(1)(b) follows each employee’s roster.
Every line in the table below comes from section 88 of the Employment Act 1968.
| Situation | What the employer owes | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Holiday falls on a normal working day and the employee does not work | A paid holiday at the gross rate of pay | Section 88(1) |
| Holiday falls on the employee’s rest day | The working day next following that rest day becomes a paid holiday | Section 88(1)(b) |
| Holiday falls on a non-working day, such as Saturday on a five-day week | Employer’s choice: pay one extra day’s salary at the gross rate of pay, or give a day off in substitution | Section 88(1)(c) |
| Employee is required to work on the holiday | By default, for every employee the Act covers: the gross rate of pay for that day, plus an extra day’s salary at the basic rate of pay for one day’s work | Section 88(4) |
| Employee outside Part 4 is required to work on the holiday | The gross rate of pay for that day. In place of the extra day’s salary, the employer may give time off in lieu on a working day, for the number of hours the employer and employee agree. Failing agreement, the employer chooses between an extra day’s salary at the basic rate of pay, four hours off if the employee worked four hours or less, and a full day off if they worked more | Section 88(4A) |
| Employee is absent without consent or reasonable excuse on the working day immediately before or after the holiday | No holiday pay for that holiday | Section 88(3) |
| Holiday falls while the employee is on unpaid leave granted at their own request | No holiday pay for that holiday | Section 88(2) |
Employment Act 1968, Part 10, section 88, and MOM on public holiday entitlement and pay, both read September 22, 2026.
Part 4 of the Employment Act carries the rest day, hours of work, and overtime rules. Section 35 applies it to workmen earning a basic salary of S$4,500 a month or less, and to other employees who are neither workmen nor in a managerial or executive position earning S$2,600 a month or less. MOM describes a workman as someone whose work involves mainly manual labor. For both thresholds, MOM’s definition of basic salary excludes overtime, bonus, annual wage supplement, productivity incentive payment, reimbursement for special expenses, and all allowances.
Every employee the Act covers is owed the extra day under section 88(4). For employees outside Part 4, the employer can use time off in lieu under section 88(4A) instead. That single test is why two people working the same public holiday in the same office can be compensated in two different ways.
Overtime itself is a separate entitlement, and the statutory right to it also follows the Part 4 thresholds. For non-workmen, MOM puts the cap at the S$2,600 salary level, an hourly rate of S$13.60, so no non-workman’s statutory overtime is worked out above that. Under section 38(4), overtime is paid at not less than one and a half times the employee’s hourly basic rate of pay, and section 38(5) caps overtime at 72 hours a month.
MOM publishes the formulas, so use them rather than a rule of thumb. For a monthly-rated employee:
Take a workman on a S$3,000 monthly basic salary and a five-day week, inside the S$4,500 threshold. The daily basic rate is S$138.46, and the hourly basic rate is S$15.73, which puts overtime at S$23.60 an hour. A non-workman on the same S$3,000 is outside Part 4, so the Act gives no overtime entitlement, and the contract decides. Sources: MOM on monthly and daily salary and on hours of work, overtime, and rest days, both read September 22, 2026.
A public holiday in the days after a salary period ends leaves fewer working days before the payment deadline. Section 21 of the Employment Act requires salary to be paid before the expiry of the seventh day after the last day of the salary period, and overtime no later than 14 days after the last day of the salary period in which it was worked.
Section 34(1) makes it an offense to fail to pay salary in accordance with Part 3. For a breach of section 21, or of sections 22 and 23 on pay when employment ends, section 34(2) sets the penalty on conviction: a fine of not less than S$3,000 and not more than S$15,000, imprisonment of up to six months, or both. For a repeat offender, it is a fine of not less than S$6,000 and not more than S$30,000, imprisonment of up to 12 months, or both. Source: Employment Act 1968, Part 3, sections 21 and 34, read September 22, 2026.
If you are budgeting the rest of the employment cost around these dates, our Singapore contribution guide covers what sits on top of salary, including employer Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions and the Skills Development Levy (SDL).
Two 2026 holidays are still ahead. Deepavali falls on Sunday, November 8, so Monday, November 9, is the paid holiday for staff whose rest day is Sunday, and Christmas Day falls on Friday, December 25. On a five-day week, both create three-day weekends. The four areas below are worth settling now for those two dates, and before January for 2027.
Long weekends and in-lieu Mondays pull leave applications into the same few days, and the gaps show up first in retail, hospitality, warehouse, and on-call roles.
When a public holiday sits close to payday, do not count on the seven-day deadline in section 21 rolling forward; run payroll early.
For night shifts that run across midnight into or out of a public holiday, write down which hours count as holiday hours before the roster goes out.
Several Singapore dates will not match your other markets, so plan each handoff before the holiday.
A public holiday week can put holiday pay, time off in lieu, overtime, and employees on both sides of the Part 4 line into the same payroll run.
We hold our own entity in Singapore, so we can be the legal employer or simply run the payroll, depending on what you need:
For Deepavali, Christmas Day, and the 2027 calendar MOM has already published, the policy to have in place names the rest day, names the non-working day, and says which section 88 route applies to which group.
If you landed here because you are the one paying for these days rather than taking them, our Singapore employer contribution guide is the next thing to read.
Eleven paid public holiday days. MOM’s calendar lists ten holidays, and Chinese New Year accounts for two of the eleven days, on February 17 and 18. Employees covered by the Employment Act are entitled to all eleven.
Four of them. Three fall on a Sunday: Vesak Day on May 31, National Day on August 9, and Deepavali on November 8. Hari Raya Puasa falls on Saturday, March 21. On a five-day week, the three Sunday holidays make Mondays June 1, August 10, and November 9 paid holidays. The Saturday one gives you either a day off in substitution or an extra day’s gross pay, at the employer’s choice under section 88(1)(c).
If Saturday is a day you are not required to work under your contract, section 88(1)(c) of the Employment Act gives the employer two options: pay you one extra day’s salary at the gross rate of pay, or give you a day off in substitution. The following Monday is not automatically a holiday, because the next-working-day rule in section 88(1)(b) applies only when the holiday falls on your rest day.
If Sunday is your rest day, section 88(1)(b) makes the next following working day a paid holiday, which on a Monday to Friday week is the Monday. MOM words this conditionally for each 2026 date, for example, “Monday, 1 June 2026, will be a public holiday if your rest day falls on 31 May 2026.” If Sunday is a normal working day for you, the holiday is the Sunday itself. If Sunday is a non-working day but not your rest day, section 88(1)(c) applies instead: a day off in substitution or one extra day’s salary at the gross rate of pay, at the employer’s choice.
On a Monday to Friday week, 251 by our count, or 250 if your employer grants a day off in substitution for Hari Raya Puasa on Saturday, March 21, rather than paying it. The arithmetic is 261 weekdays, minus the seven holidays that fall on a weekday, minus the three in-lieu Mondays. MOM’s own table of working days sums to 261 for 2026, because it is built for calculating pay for an incomplete month and includes public holidays that fall on a normal working day.
By default, section 88(4) of the Employment Act gives every employee the Act covers an extra day’s salary at the basic rate of pay, on top of the gross rate of pay for that day. If Part 4 of the Act does not cover you, section 88(4A) lets your employer give you time off in lieu instead, for the number of hours you and your employer agree. Failing agreement, your employer chooses between an extra day’s salary at the basic rate of pay, four hours off on a working day if you worked four hours or less, and a full day off if you worked more. Part 4 covers workmen, whose work is mainly manual labor, earning S$4,500 basic a month or less, and other employees who are not managers or executives earning S$2,600 basic a month or less.
Yes, with your agreement. Section 88(1)(a) allows any other day or days to be substituted for one or more public holidays by agreement between employer and employee. It is worth having that agreement in writing before the holiday rather than after it.
Do not count on the deadline rolling forward; run payroll early. Section 21(1) of the Employment Act requires salary to be paid before the expiry of the seventh day after the last day of the salary period, and section 21(2) requires overtime pay no later than 14 days after the last day of that period. Section 25(1) requires payment on a working day and during working hours, but section 25(2) lifts that requirement where salary goes into a bank account in Singapore in the employee’s name, alone or jointly.
Part-timers do, pro-rated against the hours a comparable full-time employee works, using MOM’s published formula, and the entitlement can be encashed into the hourly gross rate of pay if the contract of service says so. Staff on a fixed-term or temporary contract of service are employees, so the Act covers them for every public holiday that falls while they are employed. Independent contractors on a contract for service fall outside the Act, as do seafarers, domestic workers, and civil servants whatever their contract. For them, the contract decides, which is why holiday pay, in-lieu options, and overtime belong in the contract itself. Our Global Contractor service onboards and pays independent contractors. If you are not sure which of the two you are dealing with, we can look at the arrangement and give you a consultation on employee vs contract risks.
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