Thai Public Holidays and Festivals in 2026 and 2027: When They Fall, and What Closes

Thailand’s public holidays come from three calendars at once: fixed civil dates, royal anniversaries, and Buddhist holy days that follow the moon and move every year. The government also adds extra days at short notice, as it did for Bangkok on 16 October 2026. The dates below are the Bank of Thailand’s, because its list is the one we could read in full at source, for both years.

The holidays left in 2026

Date	Holiday
Tuesday 13 October	King Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great Memorial Day
Friday 16 October	Extra holiday, Bangkok only
Friday 23 October	King Chulalongkorn the Great Memorial Day
Monday 7 December	In place of Saturday 5 December: King Bhumibol’s birthday, National Day and Father’s Day
Thursday 10 December	Constitution Day
Thursday 31 December	New Year’s Eve

16 October is for Bangkok alone. The Bank of Thailand says the Cabinet declared it on 19 May 2026, and told government offices in the capital to let staff work from home on 12, 14 and 15 October, to ease travel and security for the finance ministers and central bank governors attending the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The bank gave Bangkok’s banks the day off as well, but said they may keep core services running where stopping them would cause disruption. Outside Bangkok, 16 October is an ordinary Friday.

The holidays in 2027

The bank has already published its list for 2027. On both lists, a holiday that falls at a weekend is given a Monday in its place, which is why several dates below are marked that way.

Date	Holiday
Friday 1 January	New Year’s Day
Monday 22 February	In place of Sunday 21 February: Makha Bucha
Tuesday 6 April	Chakri Memorial Day
Tuesday 13 to Thursday 15 April	Songkran
Monday 3 May	In place of Saturday 1 May: Labour Day
Tuesday 4 May	Coronation Day
Thursday 20 May	Visakha Bucha
Thursday 3 June	Queen Suthida’s birthday
Monday 19 July	In place of Sunday 18 July: Asanha Bucha
Wednesday 28 July	King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s birthday
Thursday 12 August	Queen Sirikit The Queen Mother’s birthday anniversary and National Mother’s Day
Wednesday 13 October	King Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great Memorial Day
Monday 25 October	In place of Saturday 23 October: King Chulalongkorn the Great Memorial Day
Monday 6 December	In place of Sunday 5 December: King Bhumibol’s birthday, National Day and Father’s Day
Friday 10 December	Constitution Day
Friday 31 December	New Year’s Eve

Whose list it is, and what closes

Banks close on every date above, because the Bank of Thailand’s notification is what sets their holidays. Branches in Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala, Satun and Songkhla also close for Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha and Chinese New Year, when those do not already fall on a holiday or a weekend. Chinese New Year is not a holiday anywhere else on the list. For changing money around a long weekend, see our money guide.

Government offices, immigration included, work to a separate list, set by the Cabinet and published by the Secretariat of the Cabinet. The Secretariat’s site sat behind a bot check that we did not get around, so that list is not reproduced here. Because the two lists are set separately, confirm with the office itself if a visa extension or any other appointment falls near a holiday.

Museums and the palace. The Bangkok National Museum closes on Mondays and Tuesdays, according to the government’s guide for visitors to the IMF and World Bank meetings, which says nothing about public holidays; our museum page has the rest. The Grand Palace publishes no fixed list of closure days, running a dated calendar instead: see our Grand Palace page, and the royal cremation below, part of which takes place inside the palace.

Five days when shops stop selling alcohol

A Prime Minister’s Office announcement in force since 10 May 2025 bans the sale of alcohol on Makha Bucha, Visakha Bucha, Asanha Bucha, Khao Phansa and Ok Phansa. It exempts five kinds of place: passenger buildings at airports with international flights, licensed entertainment venues, similar businesses in tourist areas that the Public Health Minister designates, hotels, and venues for designated national or international events. A hotel bar may serve on those days; a convenience store in town may not. For Asanha Bucha and Khao Phansa in 2026, a news report said police would enforce the ban from 00:01 on 29 July to midnight at the end of 30 July.

The rule names the holy days themselves, not the Mondays given in their place, so these are the dates that matter:

Holy day	Date
Ok Phansa 2026	Not yet on any official page we could read. A Thai calendar publisher gives Monday 26 October
Makha Bucha 2027	Sunday 21 February
Visakha Bucha 2027	Thursday 20 May
Asanha Bucha 2027	Sunday 18 July
Khao Phansa 2027	Monday 19 July, worked out rather than announced
Ok Phansa 2027	Not yet published

The Khao Phansa date follows from the Tourism Authority’s definition: it “takes place the day after the full moon of the eighth lunar month”, which is the day after Asanha Bucha, as it was in 2026. In 2027 that puts the ban on a Sunday and a Monday. Ok Phansa, which the Tourism Authority describes as marking the end of Buddhist Lent, is the last of the five.

Outside those five days, alcohol may be sold from 11:00 to midnight. Our guide to Thai laws for tourists has the hours, the places where drinking is banned, and the penalties.

Festivals worth planning around

Songkran, 13 to 15 April

Songkran is fixed in the calendar: 13, 14 and 15 April on the bank’s lists for both years, a Monday to Wednesday in 2026 and a Tuesday to Thursday in 2027.

It is also a dangerous week on the roads. The government runs a road safety campaign over it, known as the seven dangerous days. In 2026 the campaign ran from 10 to 16 April, and the Public Relations Department reported 95 deaths in its first three days. A news report citing the Road Safety Directing Centre put the toll for the full seven days at 242 deaths. If you are thinking of renting a scooter, read our scooter guide first; if you are travelling by train over Songkran or New Year, our trains guide explains how far ahead you can book.

Loy Krathong and Yi Peng, in November

Loy Krathong falls on “the full moon night of the 12th lunar month”, in the Public Relations Department’s words, and the celebrations last a few days in many areas. In 2025 it fell on 5 November. It is not a public holiday: it appears on neither of the bank’s lists.

The 2026 date is not yet official. A Thai calendar publisher gives Tuesday 24 November, but no official page we could read had published a date when we checked on 22 September.

Yi Peng, in Chiang Mai, is held at the same time, and it is the festival of sky lanterns. The province regulates them to protect aircraft as well as people and property. For 2025, according to a news report of the provincial announcement, releases were banned outright across all of Mueang Chiang Mai, the city’s own district, and Hang Dong, and in parts of four other districts. Elsewhere, releasing a lantern needed a permit from the district chief, applied for through an app called Bampen, and releases were allowed only from 19:00 to 01:00 on 5 and 6 November. The penalty reported was up to five years in prison or a fine of up to 200,000 baht, or both, and up to seven years and a fine of up to 140,000 baht if a lantern started a fire. The 2026 rules had not been announced when we checked. If you plan to release a lantern, check that whoever is organising it holds that permission.

The Phuket Vegetarian Festival, 10 to 18 October 2026

The Tourism Authority lists the 2026 festival from 10 to 18 October at shrines across Phuket, opening with the raising of the Go Teng pole on 9 October and closing with the send-off of the gods on the night of 18 October. It describes the festival as a Hokkien Chinese tradition of keeping the precepts and eating jay, the festival’s vegetarian food. The festival is not a public holiday in its own right, though King Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great Memorial Day, on 13 October, falls within it. Our Phuket page has where to stay.

December 2026: the royal cremation in Bangkok

Following the death of Her Majesty Queen Sirikit The Queen Mother in 2025, the royal cremation ceremonies run from Monday 14 to Saturday 19 December 2026 at Sanam Luang and inside the Grand Palace, with six royal processions, according to the royal schedule as republished by a local government office, and a news report of the same schedule.

The principal day is Tuesday 15 December. At 07:00 processions carry the royal urn from the Dusit Maha Prasat Throne Hall to the royal crematorium at Sanam Luang. The official cremation ceremony is at 16:30, and the cremation itself at 22:00. On 16 December the royal relics are carried back into the Grand Palace, on 18 December they are enshrined in the Chakri Maha Prasat Throne Hall, and on 19 December the royal ashes are taken for interment at Wat Ratchabophit and Wat Bowonniwet.

What it means for a visit. The ceremonies take place at Sanam Luang and inside the Grand Palace itself, and the National Museum stands beside Sanam Luang. If you are in Bangkok that week, plan any visit to the Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaew or the museum around the schedule, and check the palace’s own calendar first. The bank’s list for December 2026 does not include a holiday for the cremation, and we found no announcement of one when we checked on 22 September.

What we could not confirm

The Cabinet’s list for government offices. The Secretariat of the Cabinet’s site and the government’s own news site both sat behind bot checks that we did not get around.
Ok Phansa and Loy Krathong in 2026. Both follow the lunar calendar, and the dates above are a calendar publisher’s, not an announcement.
Chiang Mai’s lantern rules for 2026, which had not been published.
Any holiday, closures or road arrangements for the royal cremation. None had been announced on the pages we read.