Define: Gazetted Holiday

In practice, a gazetted holiday sets a fixed day each year when government offices, banks, and most businesses close. Because the holiday is published in the official gazette, it carries legal weight: employers generally treat it as a paid holiday, and any staff required to work usually receive extra pay or a day in lieu under company policy or local labor law. Gazetted holidays differ from restricted or optional holidays, which an employee can choose to observe from a set list, and from a purely internal company holiday that isn't backed by a government notification. The key difference between a gazetted holiday and a restricted holiday comes down to who decides. A gazetted holiday is fixed by the government and applies to everyone; a restricted holiday lets each employee pick a limited number of days to observe from an official list, which is useful in countries with many religious and regional festivals. Because holiday systems vary by country, the number of gazetted days differs too: India publishes its list annually, and other Commonwealth nations run their own gazettes. When you're calculating working days, defining timelines, or setting a leave policy, gazetted holidays are the dates that don't count as working time.

Worked example: suppose a national holiday such as Independence Day or Republic Day is gazetted for a given year. A software services contract sets a 10 working-day delivery window starting the day before. Because the gazetted holiday is a statutory non-working day, it's excluded from the count, so the deadline shifts one day later. The list of gazetted holidays is typically issued in advance for the full year, so both parties can agree timelines that follow the official calendar. If a contract references "public holidays" without defining them, the gazetted list is usually the reference point, which is why service agreements often name it explicitly. For global teams, this matters because holidays observed in one country rarely match another: Christmas may be gazetted in one jurisdiction and a normal working day in another, and dates like Republic Day are specific to particular nations. Naming the applicable gazette (and the relevant year, such as 2026) removes that ambiguity from a cross-border contract. See our holidays observed definition for how holiday schedules are recorded in agreements, and our service agreement template for setting delivery timelines around them.