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Public Holidays and Bank Holidays for Kuwait

The list of Kuwait bank holidays, national holidays and public holidays for 2009, comes from the Q++ Worldwide Public Holidays Database, the professional source of international public holidays long trusted by the world's foremost diary publishers. The information on this page is provided for private, non-professional, use. Qualified professionals can license data for 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and beyond. For details, please visit our licensing information page or

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19 Nov 2009 (The Arab Times-Kuwait City) Kuwait's Civil Service Commission (CSC) has announced that pursuant to the recent Cabinet Decision, the Eid Al-Adha public holidays would begin with Arafat Day, on Thursday, November 26, 2009. • 12 Nov 2009 (Zawya-Kuwait City) Kuwait's National Assembly's health and labor committee has approved, and forwarded for its second reading, the new private sector labor law which would align private sector public holidays, and their duration, on the public sector holidays schedule. • 16 Sep 2009 (The Kuwait Times-Kuwait City) Kuwait's Cabinet has confirmed earlier rumours that the upcoming End of Ramadan (Eid al-Fitr) public holidays would extend for a full week. • 10 Sep 2009 (The Arab Times-Kuwait City) Kuwait's Civil Service Commission (CSC) has approved the extension of the upcoming Eid-ul-Fitr public holidays to run from Saturday, September 19 to Saturday, September 26, 2009. • 09 Sep 2009 (The Kuwait Times-Kuwait City) Kuwait's Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs, Roudhan Al-Roudhan, announced that the Cabinet would declare Thursday, September 24, 2009, an official public holiday, if the upcoming Eid Al-Fitr fell on Monday, September 21. • 02 Sep 2009 (The Kuwait Times-Kuwait City) The Legal and Legislative Committee of Kuwait's National Assembly has approved a proposal to declare the last 10 days of the month of Ramadan as public holidays. • 21 Aug 2009 (The Arab Times-Kuwait City) Kuwait's National Assembly approved, in its first reading, the new private sector labor law which would align private sector public holidays, and their duration, on the public sector holidays schedule. • 09 Jul 2009 (Official website of Al Diwan Al Amiri-State of Kuwait) Kuwait's Civil Service Commission has confirmed that, in accordance with Kuwaiti Cabinet decision number 252 of 2008, Thursday, July 23, 2009, rather than July 20, will be the public holiday marking Prophet Mohammed's ascension to heaven. • 18 Feb 2009 (Middle East North Africa Financial Network-Dubai) The Health, Social and Labour Affairs Committee of Kuwait's Parliament is to send a set of 25 amendments to the current labour law in the Private Sector to the National Assembly, before March 3. • 10 Feb 2009 (Kuwait Times) Kuwait's Civil Service Commission (CSC) announced that the upcoming national holidays celebrations would be held for four days starting February 25 (National Day) and 26 (Liberation Day) followed by Friday and Saturday which mark the weekend for the public sector. • 03 Feb 2009 (Kuwait Times-Kuwait City) Late last week, Kuwait's Labour Committee of Parliament approved the first reading of a new labor law which, among other measures, would grant more public holidays to private sector employees. • 17 Aug 2008 (Al Watan) A draft law presented by MPs Faisal Al-Mislem, Jamaan Al-Harbash, Ali Al-Omair and Abdullatif Al-Omairi, would add a new Article 23 to Amiri decree 15/1979, stipulating that the last ten days of Ramadan (September 21-30, in 2008) be an official religious holiday. • 26 Mar 2008 (The Arab Times) The Civil Service Commission of Kuwait (CSC) gave details of the latest changes made to the official holidays list, clarifying which public holidays are to remain on their set date, and which public holidays were to move to the adjoining weekend. • More News Updates For the full version of the summarized news items above, and older news items not displayed above, go to the Kuwait public holidays news and updates page, or worldwide public holidays news and updates page, or subscribe to one of our free email newsletters.

Weekends: Kuwait moved to 5-day workweeks in the early 1990's and, although many Muslim countries have changed their weekend days in 2005 and 2006, weekends in Kuwait remained on Thursdays and Fridays, until Saturday, September 1st, 2007, on which date weekends in Kuwait were changed to Friday and Saturday . • Mid-Week Public Holidays: There are special rules that govern the moving of the following four public holidays: Islamic New Year, The Prophet's Birthday, The Prophet's Ascension, and New Year's Day, according to a cabinet resolution in May 2001. • Kuwait International Codes KW and KWT (2 and 3-letter ISO3166 codes) and .kw (ICANN national top-level internet domain). • Other Sources of Information The following specialized websites are also a good source of Kuwait information and news: Central Bank of Kuwait (Kuwait central bank), ASI Hot Spots (security-related world events: terrorist threats, political strife, strikes, criminal activity, aviation incidents and health outbreaks), CIA World Factbook (Kuwait maps, demographics and economic statistics), the IFES (information covering upcoming elections, referenda, electoral structures and voter participation in Kuwait), and Wikipedia (includes Kuwait commemorative dates that are not necessarily public holidays).

Observance : Any entry in the Observance column indicates that, in Kuwait, the holiday may be regional or non-official or limited to certain religious and/or linguistic groups, or begin at a time other than midnight. Note that religious holidays are included only if they are national public holidays, or if the national labour code has specific holiday allowances for employees of specific religions. For more information, see our pages on the religious calendars of the world. Aft=Afternoon, Arm=Armenian, Bah=Bahai, Bnk=Banks and most financial institutions, Bud=Buddhist, Cat=Catholic, Chr=Christian, Cop=Coptic, Eve=Evening, Gov=Government services and civil servants, Hin=Hindu, Jew=Jewish, Lin=Linguistic or ethnic groups, Mor=Morning, Mun=Municipal, Mus=Muslim, Orth=Orthodox, Othr=Miscellaneous partial observances (usually described in the Additional Information section of this page), Prt=Protestant, Reg=Regional, Rel=Other Religion, Sch=Schools and universities, Sik=Sikh.

Religious Holidays : Public holidays in Kuwait that are based on certain religious calendars may be subject to local variations due to differing interpretations between different religious authorities, or to seemingly arbitrary changes in the date a holiday is celebrated because it conflicts with another holiday that is based on another calendar, or because the day of the holiday is deemed inauspicious (bad luck). To find out more about these uncertainties, see the footnote below, if any, for each specific religion.

Muslim Holidays : Muslim bank holidays, legal holidays and public holidays for Kuwait were evaluated using the Umm al-Qura Calendar of Saudi Arabia which is used in Saudi Arabia and in most of the Persian Gulf States. Holidays may occur a day later in countries outside the Gulf region. The sunrises, sunsets, moon phases, moonrises and moonsets used in these calculations are based on the location of Mecca (latitude 21.42°N, longitude, 39.82°E, GMT+3 hours, no summer time rules). For more details on Muslim holidays, see Muslim Calendar Holidays. For Salat (prayer times) calculations, see our Freeware page.

Disclaimer
In many parts of the world, holidays are subject to arbitrary, last minute, changes by local authorities. While every effort has been made to present an accurate list of 2009 bank holidays, legal holidays and public holidays for Kuwait, we cannot accept any responsibility for any error or omission in the data presented above. You are therefore advised to verify the above dates with the embassy or consulate of Kuwait, before planning any trip to Kuwait. For last-minute updates to worldwide public holidays, visit our blog or subscribe to our free email newsletters.