Haiti Public Holidays
Discover upcoming public holiday dates for Haiti and start planning to make the most of your time off.
National holidays are regulated by the Labor Code of Haiti, laws 107-119 of the amendments made to the Labor Code in 1993. These laws provide the government with the ability to create national holidays, determine which days are paid holidays and which are not, and determine the dates in which they are celebrated.
The Labor Code of Haiti requires that on paid non-working holidays all employees required to work due to the nature of their position, must be paid at a rate of one and a half times their pay for all hours worked on the holiday. In addition, the Labor Code states that employment contracts cannot eliminate pay for holidays that are declared as paid dates by the government.
The government releases an official list of holidays at the end of each year for the following year. Some of the dates of the religious holidays will change each year. This is due to the fact that these holidays are celebrated based on the lunar cycle. The government of Haiti requires that all employers recognise these holidays, regardless of the dates in which they occur.
The government of Haiti is also known to declare one-time national holidays, usually without pay, for various reasons throughout the year. Some occasion that have prompted one-off holidays include election periods, bridging two holidays that occur a day apart, and commemorative holidays.
Carnival Monday is usually observed as a half day off from work. While this is not a nationally recognised holiday, it has become a tradition with business owners.