For anyone managing leave records, payroll calculations, or employment disputes in the UAE, the public holiday calendar for 2024 and 2025 remains highly relevant long after those years have passed. Retroactive leave entitlement checks, gratuity calculations, end-of-service disputes, and travel expense claims all require accurate holiday data — and getting those dates wrong creates problems that take time to unwind.
This piece covers the confirmed public holiday schedules for both years, with particular attention to the details that matter most in practice: which holidays created long weekends, which fell on already-off days, and what that means for anyone working through historical leave records in 2026.
UAE Public Holidays 2024 — The Full Confirmed Picture
The UAE observed 13 official public holiday days in 2024, running from New Year’s Day on 1 January through UAE National Day on 2 and 3 December. All Islamic holiday dates for 2024 are now fully confirmed following official moon sighting announcements — there is no remaining uncertainty in the calendar.
For anyone who needs the complete verified list, the uae public holidays 2024 page at UAEWow carries the full confirmed table with dates, days of the week, Islamic calendar references, and long weekend breakdowns updated as of mid-2026.
The highlights from 2024 that tend to come up most in retroactive record-keeping are the following.
Eid Al Fitr 2024 ran from Tuesday 9 April to Friday 12 April — four days rather than the standard three. This extended break occurred because Ramadan 2024 completed its full 30-day cycle before Shawwal began, adding one extra day to the standard entitlement. The four-day block sat directly before the Friday–Saturday weekend, creating a potential six consecutive days off for residents who planned around it. For payroll purposes, the four-day entitlement is confirmed and applies to both public and private sector employees.
Eid Al Adha 2024 ran from Sunday 16 June to Tuesday 18 June, with the Day of Arafat on Saturday 15 June immediately preceding it. This created a four-day consecutive run from Saturday through Tuesday. Combined with Friday 14 June as the preceding weekend day, many residents had five consecutive days off in total.
UAE National Day 2024 fell on Monday 2 and Tuesday 3 December, with Commemoration Day on Sunday 1 December leading directly into it. This three-day run from Sunday through Tuesday, sitting adjacent to the preceding Friday–Saturday weekend, created another extended break without any annual leave requirement.
One detail that frequently causes confusion in retroactive payroll reviews is the Day of Arafat. It is a separate official public holiday from Eid Al Adha — one day preceding it — and it applies to both public and private sector employees regardless of their sector. It is sometimes omitted in informal leave calculations, which creates discrepancies that only surface later.
UAE Holidays 2025 — What Changed and What Mattered
The uae holidays 2025 calendar carried 14 official public holiday days — one more than 2024 and one more than the standard 13 that apply in most years. The additional day again came from Ramadan completing its full 30-day cycle, extending Eid Al Fitr from three to four days.
The most significant feature of 2025 was the concentration of Islamic holidays in a remarkably short window. Three major occasions — Day of Arafat, Eid Al Adha, and Islamic New Year — all fell within 22 days of each other in June. Day of Arafat was on Thursday 5 June, Eid Al Adha ran Friday 6 June to Sunday 8 June, and Islamic New Year landed on Thursday 26 June. This gave June 2025 five official public holiday days — the highest concentration of any single month across either 2024 or 2025.
The Eid Al Adha 2025 dates warrant particular attention for retroactive leave purposes. Because the three Eid days fell on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday — which are already non-working days for most private sector employees — the only standalone weekday affected was Thursday 5 June, the Day of Arafat. UAE Labour Law provides that when a public holiday coincides with an employee’s regular weekly rest day, a substitute compensatory day or payment is typically owed. Whether this applies depends on the specific employment contract, free zone rules, and the employer’s leave policy — but it is a point that has generated disputes in retroactive records and is worth verifying rather than assuming.
Eid Al Fitr 2025 ran from Sunday 30 March to Wednesday 2 April. The Sunday-to-Wednesday block sat directly before the Thursday work day and the Friday–Saturday weekend, meaning residents who arranged their schedule correctly had up to seven consecutive days off without using any annual leave. This was one of the most valuable leave leverage windows in several years, comparable to similar rare alignments last seen in 2022.
Why These Dates Still Matter in 2026
The question most people ask is why 2024 and 2025 holiday dates are worth tracking after the fact. There are several practical answers.
Employment contracts in the UAE often define leave entitlements by reference to official public holidays, and disputes about how many days were owed, used, or compensated frequently arise months or even years after the relevant period. End-of-service gratuity calculations must account for public holidays correctly, particularly when an employee’s last working day falls near a holiday cluster. Freelancers and contractors who invoice based on working days need accurate holiday records to reconcile billing discrepancies. Companies reviewing HR compliance ahead of audits or regulatory checks need verified historical calendars.
Beyond the administrative use cases, many residents simply want to compare how leave worked across years — whether 2025 was better than 2024 for travel planning, whether the Eid Al Adha break in one year was more useable than another.
The answer, based on the actual dates, is that 2025 offered more total holiday days and a slightly better distribution for long weekend creation than 2024, with the Eid Al Fitr break in particular being exceptional for travel. However, the Eid Al Adha situation in 2025 — where all three days fell on the weekend — was arguably worse from an actual day-off perspective than 2024, where the break ran Sunday through Tuesday and gave most employees three genuine additional days off.
How the UAE Holiday Calendar Works
For anyone less familiar with how UAE public holidays are structured, a few background points help make sense of year-to-year comparisons.
The UAE observes eight distinct holiday occasions each year, several of which span multiple days. The fixed dates — New Year’s Day on 1 January, Commemoration Day on 1 December, and UAE National Day on 2 and 3 December — never change. The Islamic holidays shift annually because the Islamic lunar calendar is approximately 10 to 11 days shorter than the Gregorian solar calendar. Each year, Eid Al Fitr, Eid Al Adha, Islamic New Year, and the Prophet’s Birthday fall roughly 10 days earlier than they did the previous year. Over a decade, each Islamic holiday cycles through all seasons.
This shifting pattern is why planning more than a year ahead for travel around Eid requires tracking the Islamic calendar rather than assuming the holiday will fall at the same time each year. It is also why the June 2025 holiday cluster will not repeat in the same form — by 2026, the same holidays have shifted to May and earlier June, spreading out the concentration that made 2025 distinctive.
Understanding both the fixed structure and the Islamic calendar shift gives residents a much clearer framework for planning leave around public holidays in any given year — whether looking back at 2024 and 2025 or forward into 2026 and beyond.