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Public Holidays and Bank Holidays for New Zealand

The list of New Zealand 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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25 Jul 2009 (National Business Review-NZPA) The Matariki Day Bill was one of the two bills pulled out of this week's members' ballot, which means that the bill proposing that Maori New Year be made a public holiday will get a hearing in New Zealand's Parliament. • 23 Jun 2009 (NZ Herald News-Auckland) Despite last-minute frantic lobbying, tomorrow, Matariki, or Maori New Year, will not be a public holiday in New Zealand. • 17 Jun 2009 (Scoop-Wellington) New Zealand's Maori Party has announced that it would introduce a private member bill into the 49th Parliament, making Matariki Maori New Year a public holiday throughout New Zealand. • 03 Jun 2009 (NZ Herald News-Wellington) New Zealand Labour Minister, Kate Wilkinson, has announced that a governmental working group had been appointed to review the Holidays Act, which regulates the public holidays in New Zealand. One of the points to be reviewed is transferring the observance of fixed-date public holidays depending on the weekday when they occur. • 19 Sep 2008 (The Dominion Post) The spokesperson for New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark, said that the Government had been talking to Sir Edmund Hillary's family about how best to mark his life and that an announcement of this was not too far away. When asked specifically if this would involve a new public holiday, the spokesperson refused to rule it out. • 01 Sep 2008 (Otago Daily Times) New Zealand's Otago may get an additional 3-day weekend in the fall of 2011, if a petition soon to be presented to the Governor General is approved. • 25 Apr 2008 (Radio New Zealand) A recent poll shows that 38% of those questioned supported Anzac Day (April 25) being marked as New Zealand's national day, while 52% favoured keeping Waitangi Day as the national day. • 13 Jan 2008 (New Zealand Herald) Following the death of Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to reach the top of Mount Everest, there have been calls for a public holiday in his honour. Some of the ideas floated about are a new public holiday on May 29 (the anniversary of his 1953 climb), or renaming the existing Waitangi Day public holiday. Prime Minister Helen Clark said she had given "no consideration", yet. • 23 Feb 2007 (newswire.co.nz) A move to have Waitangi Day renamed New Zealand Day, to be observed on the Monday of the week in which February 6 occurs, has failed after a parliamentary select committee rejected it. • 24 Oct 2006 (RNZI-Auckland) The Restaurant Association of New Zealand says about one in three restaurants are not open on public holidays because of the labour costs. • More News Updates For the full version of the summarized news items above, and older news items not displayed above, go to the New Zealand public holidays news and updates page, or worldwide public holidays news and updates page, or subscribe to one of our free email newsletters.

New Zealand public holidays are governed by the Holidays Act 2003, which, as of April 1, 2004, replaced the Holidays Act 1981, and was later amended by the Holidays Amendment Act, 2004. • Weekend Public Holidays: Except for Christmas, New Year's, and their respective following days, public holidays are supposed to stay fixed if they fall on a weekend. A number of places do, however, add a day in lieu for ANZAC Day, if it occurs on a weekend day, even though it is supposed to stay fixed. • Shopping on Sundays and Public Holidays: In 1990 most shops could not trade on any Sunday and they were unable to open on nine of the 11 recognised public holidays. Now they can trade on 51 out of 52 Sundays and every public holiday except Good Friday, Christmas Day and the morning of Anzac Day. The one Sunday when shops are not currently allowed to open, is Easter Sunday, although this restriction is currently being reviewed . • Provincial Anniversary Days: these relate to the former Provinces of 19th Century New Zealand and are not related to or determined by present-day Districts or Regions. In each province, these are generally celebrated on the closest Monday to the actual day, but not always. • Auckland: January 29. Canterbury: Northern & Central Canterbury areas observe Christchurch Show Day. South Canterbury observes Dominion Day. Chatham Islands: November 30. Hawkes' Bay: Moves from November 1 to Friday before Labour Day. Marlborough: Moves from November 1 to 1st Monday after Labour Day. Nelson: February 1. Otago: March 23 (Moves to Tuesday 25 March to avoid Easter in 2008) Southland: around January 17. Taranaki: moves from March 31 to 2nd Monday in March (to avoid Easter). Wellington: January 22. Westland: December 1. • Melbourne Cup Day, the first Tuesday in November, is, officially speaking, only celebrated in Melbourne, Australia, but it also generates a lot of interest in NZ, where business does slow down that afternoon. • New Zealand International Codes NZ and NZL (2 and 3-letter ISO3166 codes) and .nz (ICANN national top-level internet domain). • Other Sources of Information The following specialized websites are also a good source of New Zealand information and news: Reserve Bank of New Zealand (New Zealand central bank), ASI Hot Spots (security-related world events: terrorist threats, political strife, strikes, criminal activity, aviation incidents and health outbreaks), CIA World Factbook (New Zealand maps, demographics and economic statistics), the IFES (information covering upcoming elections, referenda, electoral structures and voter participation in New Zealand), and Wikipedia (includes New Zealand commemorative dates that are not necessarily public holidays).

Observance : Any entry in the Observance column indicates that, in New Zealand, 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.

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 New Zealand, 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 New Zealand, before planning any trip to New Zealand. For last-minute updates to worldwide public holidays, visit our blog or subscribe to our free email newsletters.