Thai holidays, 2026 and 2027.

Thailand has two holiday lists, and your calendar app has one

This is the thing to understand before any date on this page is useful. The Prime Minister's Office publishes the annual list of government holidays. The Bank of Thailand separately notifies holidays for financial institutions. The two overlap for most of the year and then come apart, and when they come apart it is always on the day you needed something done.

The government list in force comes from the Cabinet resolution of 21 May 2019, circulated by the Secretariat of the Cabinet: seventeen entries totalling nineteen days. The bank list is reissued every year as a numbered notification, which is why it can carry a Bangkok-only day or drop a holy day the government keeps. We read the Bank of Thailand's own 2026 list and its 2027 notification directly rather than through a calendar site, and these are the four places they part company.

There is a fifth divergence worth naming because it is not a disagreement between the lists but a hole in ours. Friday 16 October 2026 is on the Bank of Thailand's published 2026 list as an additional special holiday for Bangkok, added by Notification 26/2569. Our own Thai public holidays calendar has no row for it, and neither does the calendar feed behind it. We would rather tell you here than let the widget quietly say the branch is open.

What is left of 2026

Most of the 2026 calendar has already gone by. These are the days that remain, with the festival days that close nothing left in on purpose, because the useful information about Loy Krathong is that it is not a holiday.

Every 2027 bank holiday, from the notification

Eighteen days, four of them substitutions for a holiday that lands on a weekend. This table is a transcription of Bank of Thailand Notification 37/2569, signed on 17 August 2026 by Governor Vitai Ratanakorn, read in the Bank's own English PDF on 6 October 2026. Every weekday below was re-computed against the 2027 calendar before publication and all eighteen agree with the notification. It is not a query against a database, and it covers banks and specialised financial institutions, not government offices.

The notification also gives extra days to branches in Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala, Satun and Songkhla for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha as announced by the Sheikhul Islam Office, and for Chinese New Year, in each case only where the date does not already fall on a listed holiday or a weekend. The Islamic Bank of Thailand gets the two Eid days on the same condition.

Two bank holidays that older guides still print have been abolished, and the Bank says so on its own page: the mid-year closing day on 1 July went from 2019, and the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives' additional 1 April holiday went from 2022.

The 2027 government holiday list is not published yet

We looked and did not find it. The Bank of Thailand has notified its 2027 holidays; no Cabinet resolution or Prime Minister's Office announcement setting the 2027 government holidays was located in this run. That matters for two reasons.

First, the Cabinet has repeatedly added bridge days to make a longer break, and those additions come late. In one round it added Monday 2 June 2025, Monday 11 August 2025 and Friday 2 January 2026, which stretched the New Year break to five days. A 2027 list published in advance of those decisions would be incomplete. Second, and more concretely, the Royal Ploughing Ceremony sits on the government list with no date against it: item 2.6 of the announcement prints only that the Bureau of the Royal Household fixes the day each year. So there is no honest 2027 date for it, and a site that shows one is guessing.

There is one collision already visible in 2027 and we cannot resolve it from published documents. Asalha Bucha falls on Sunday 18 July 2027, and the government substitute would normally land on Monday 19 July, which is already Khao Phansa. Whether the Cabinet adds a further day is unresolved. Assume Monday is closed and check whether Tuesday 20 July has been added before you book anything around it.

For the royal days specifically, and why 13 October has two correct names and Coronation Day moved, see royal observances and what they mean in daily life.

The famous festivals that close nothing

Half of what people think of as Thai holidays are not holidays. They are observances, and they change your week in a different way: the roads, the river, the flights and the restaurant menu, not the counter at the land office.

Two of these have guides of their own on this site: Chinese New Year in Yaowarat and the Vegetarian Festival. For the five Buddhist holy days and what each one commemorates, read the Buddhist holy days, which carries the dry-day analysis in full. We have not dated Loy Krathong for 2027 on this page, and section 10 says why.

Chiang Mai's Yi Peng in 2026 has moved, and the lanterns are regulated

If you are going to Chiang Mai for the lanterns this year, the main site is not where it has been. The Public Relations Department's Chiang Mai station published the programme on 24 September 2026, quoting the city's deputy mayor Sunthorn Yamsiri: the 2026 Yi Peng festival runs 23 to 25 November 2026, and the principal venue moves from the Tha Phae Gate plaza to Ton Lamyai Market public park.

The opening ceremony is at Ton Lamyai park, along with the large hanging-lantern competition, the children's Yi Peng contest and the Yi Peng pageant. The rest stays spread across the old city, under a theme marking 730 years of Nakhon Phing: the Lanna sa pao craft competition at Ton Lamyai park; the shrine and White Chedi rite at the municipal offices; the chain-of-krathong release on the Ping riverfront in front of the municipal office; the Tang Tham Luang sermon at the Three Kings Monument; the banana-leaf and fresh-flower krathong competition at the municipal office; the phang pratip oil-lamp lighting at the Lanna Folklife Museum forecourt, the city gates and the four corners of the moat; the grand krathong parade for the royal trophy running from Tha Phae Gate to the municipal office; and a light, sound and mixed-media exhibition at Tha Phae Gate across all three days. Community gateway-arch competitions run in the neighbourhoods and temples inside the municipal area.

The same announcement is explicit that the release of sky lanterns must follow the designated areas, times and measures, for the safety of residents, visitors and air navigation, alongside traffic management, river and air safety, water-level control and controls on alcohol sales. Chiang Mai publishes those lantern restrictions as a provincial announcement each year, with named districts and sub-districts where releases are prohibited outright, permitted windows on the festival days, and a requirement to apply to the district chief for anywhere outside the absolute no-release zone. Do not treat last year's zones and hours as this year's. The 2026 provincial announcement was not opened in this run, so we have not printed the hours or the district list. Buy a lantern release through an organised event inside a permitted zone, or ask your hotel for the current provincial notice before you light anything.

Chiang Mai Airport has in past years shifted its operating schedule for the festival and asked passengers to allow extra time. If you are flying in or out of Chiang Mai between 23 and 25 November, check your flight directly with the airline rather than assuming a normal timetable. Our domestic flights guide covers the carriers, and living in Chiang Mai covers the city itself.

Songkran: the only Thai festival UNESCO has inscribed

Songkran in Thailand, traditional Thai New Year festival was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2023. It is one of six Thai elements on that list, which we confirmed on UNESCO's own Thailand country page on 6 October 2026, alongside Khon in 2018, Nuad Thai in 2019, Nora in 2021, and Tomyum Kung and Kebaya in 2024. Loy Krathong is not on it. UNESCO's Thailand page shows Loy Krathong among files pending treatment, which is a different status from inscription, and a fair number of travel guides call it a UNESCO festival regardless.

The three holiday days are fixed: 13, 14 and 15 April, every year, with no lunar drift. In 2027 that is Tuesday to Thursday. The Cabinet has in some years added days to make a longer block, so check the government list for the year once it exists. In practice water-throwing starts a day or two before the first holiday and carries on past the last, and the length varies by city.

The part the brochures leave out is the road. The Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation runs a road-safety count over the holiday that the Thai press calls the seven dangerous days. For the seven days from 10 to 16 April 2026 the reported totals were 1,242 accidents, 1,200 injuries and 242 deaths, with speeding behind 40.65 per cent of crashes and motorcycles involved in 64.55 per cent of them, against a three-year average the agency put at 35.59 per cent higher for accidents and 9.70 per cent higher for deaths. Those numbers reached us through Nation Thailand's report of the agency's release; we did not open the agency's own publication, so read them as reported rather than as a direct citation. The practical reading is simple enough. If you have to cross provinces over Songkran, the overnight train and the morning flight are a different risk class from a hire car, and a rented motorbike on 13 April is the worst version of the decision.

More on the festival itself in the Songkran guide, on trains in trains and rail travel, and on April heat in weather and seasons.

The five dry days, and the hours that changed in 2026

Five days a year, alcohol may not be sold in Thailand, and they are all Buddhist holy days: Makha Bucha, Visakha Bucha, Asalha Bucha, Khao Phansa and Ok Phansa. The five-day list is set by the Prime Minister's Office announcement on days prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages, number 3, of B.E. 2558, published in the Royal Gazette on 18 February 2015. It replaced a four-day announcement from 2009, and the four-day version is the one still in circulation on most guides. Ok Phansa is the fifth, and it is also a day on which nothing closes, so it catches people twice.

Since an announcement published on 9 May 2025 the holy-day ban carries exemptions for five categories: international-airport passenger areas, entertainment venues holding the relevant permit, service businesses in areas the Public Health Minister designates as tourism areas, hotels registered under the Hotel Act, and venues hosting a national or international event designated by the Tourism Minister. Convenience stores, supermarkets, ordinary restaurants and roadside stalls are not exempt. Which areas and which events qualify are published as ministerial acts rather than as a standing list, so the only reliable answer on the day is the venue's own.

The ordinary daily hours changed too, and recently. The Royal Thai Government portal states that alcohol may generally be sold from 11.00 to 24.00, effective 29 May 2026, with the long-standing 14.00 to 17.00 restriction folded into the permitted window rather than carved out of it. The portal does not name the announcement number behind that change, so treat the hours as current government guidance rather than as a citation to a specific notification, and expect individual provinces and venue types to differ.

The full analysis of which days close what, with the dates for 2026 and 2027, is on the Buddhist holy days. Bar hours, zoning and what a venue can and cannot do are in nightlife and alcohol rules.

If you are transferring a condo or need a counter open

A property transfer in Thailand happens at the district land office, and the land office keeps the government holiday list, not the bank one. The bank draft you need to carry there comes from a branch that keeps the bank list. On most days that distinction does not matter. On Khao Phansa, on 1 May and on Friday 16 October 2026 in Bangkok, it decides whether the day works at all.

Three practical rules, in order of how often they bite. Do not schedule a transfer in the Songkran block or the week around New Year, because the offices are shut and the staff who are not shut are catching up. Give yourself two clear working days between drawing the draft and the appointment, so one unexpected closure does not move the date. And when a holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday, check which list you are relying on: the substitution day is set per list, and the two do not always substitute the same way.

BAANLYY is a listing portal. We do not own, lease, manage or control any listed property and we are not a party to any lease or sale, and nothing here is legal advice. For a transfer date that has money riding on it, confirm the office's own calendar with the office.

What we could not confirm

These are gaps rather than omissions, and they are here because a page that prints a date it cannot stand behind is worse than one that admits a hole.

• The 2027 government holiday list. Not located. The Bank of Thailand's 2027 notification exists and is transcribed above; no equivalent Cabinet resolution or Prime Minister's Office announcement for 2027 was found.
• Any 2027 Royal Ploughing Ceremony date. There is none to find. The government list itself prints no date and leaves the day to the Bureau of the Royal Household.
• Loy Krathong 2027. Not printed. It is the full-moon night of the twelfth lunar month, and no official Thai listing for 2027 was opened. The 2026 date here rests on two official listings read together: the Tourism Authority of Thailand's events calendar dates a municipal Loy Krathong observance to 24 November 2026, and Chiang Mai province runs Yi Peng across 23 to 25 November.
• Chiang Mai's 2026 lantern zones and release hours. Not printed. The provincial announcement for this year was not opened, and last year's windows are not this year's.
• Vegetarian Festival dates. Not printed. The nine days fall in the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar and no official Thai listing was opened for 2026 or 2027.
• The statutory minimum number of paid holidays a private employer must give. Not stated. It is a figure a reader would act on and no current Thai government publication of it was opened in this run. Get your own company's holiday calendar in writing.
• The announcement number for the 2026 alcohol hours change. The Royal Thai Government portal gives the effect and the effective date but not the instrument.

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