New Zealand
New Zealand defines its holidays in the Holidays Act 2003, which fixes eleven nationwide days. On top of those, every province observes anniversary dates that are set separately each year and shift with the Mondayisation rules. Matariki, restored to the calendar in 2022, is the first new national holiday in a decade.
The eleven public holidays
- New Year's Day - 1 January
- Day after New Year's Day - 2 January
- Waitangi Day - 6 February
- Good Friday
- Easter Monday
- Anzac Day - 25 April
- King's Birthday - first Monday in June
- Matariki - published annually
- Labour Day - fourth Monday in October
- Christmas Day
- Boxing Day
Matariki and the Matariki Act
Matariki is the Māori New Year, marked by the seven stars of Matariki (the Pleiades) coming to the foreground after the southern winds of Taurus subside. Unlike most holidays in this calendar, its date cannot be computed by rule from the Gregorian year: the celebration falls on the first sunrise after the new moon that brings Matariki into the leading position, so each date has to be derived from the lunar calendar and then published. The public holiday date always lands on a Friday. The Matariki Act 2022 made it statutory and brought it back to a status it had held before 1976; it received royal assent on 11 April 2022 and is written bilingually in te reo Māori and English. A Māori advisory group of mātauranga experts set the dates out to 2052: 10 July 2026, 25 June 2027, 14 July 2028, 6 July 2029 and 21 June 2030. That spread of nearly three weeks between consecutive years is exactly why no fixed rule can replace the published table.
Province anniversary dates
Beneath the eleven national days sits a layer most international calendars omit entirely: each of the twelve provinces and the Chatham Islands observes an anniversary date, set by regional or city councils rather than by the Holidays Act, and moved to the nearest Monday. Because the actual date is fixed but the observed date follows it, the observed date walks around the calendar year by year. Wellington marks 22 January and was observed on Monday 19 January in 2026 but Monday 25 January in 2027; Hawke's Bay marks 1 November and was observed on Friday 23 October in 2026 and Friday 22 October in 2027.
Which holidays get Mondayised
Waitangi Day and Anzac Day both follow a different weekend rule from the statutory days of rest. When either falls on a Sunday it is observed on the following Monday; when it falls on a Saturday the Saturday itself is the holiday, with no weekday substitution. That asymmetry catches people out every year, and it is why the 2026 Anzac Day was observed on Monday 27 April while the 2026 Boxing Day was observed on Monday 28 December.
Mondayisation and the pay rules
The Act treats a weekend holiday differently depending on whether the worker would normally have worked that day. If the holiday lands on a normal working day, it stays on that date and there is no Mondayisation. If it lands on a day the worker would not normally work, the entitlement moves to the following Monday. The effect is that a part-time or shift worker can receive a different observed date from a full-time office worker in the same week. Anyone required to work a public holiday is entitled to time-and-a-half plus an alternative day in lieu, and the same pay treatment extends to employees on parental leave, who are entitled to neither the pay nor the day.
Where the calendar differs from Australia
The two calendars share a structural similarity - both derive from British practice, both are small, and both have a sub-national layer - but they diverge sharply on a few points. New Zealand has no Easter Saturday or Sunday holidays and only two January days, where Australia has both Easter days plus a January long weekend. New Zealand aligns Waitangi Day and Anzac Day to the nearest Monday, whereas Australia keeps Anzac Day on the fixed date and only grants an observed day when it falls on a weekend. And Matariki has no Australian counterpart at all, which is the clearest case of New Zealand having developed its own calendar rather than inherited one.