Practical guides on employee rights, leave planning and the history behind New Zealand's public holidays.
The best opportunities to stretch your annual leave in 2026 — use 9 leave days and take 20 total days off. Includes a full summary table of every long weekend.
Read article →A plain-English guide to relevant daily pay, alternative holidays and what happens if you work on a public holiday — including the mistakes employers most commonly make.
Read article →When a public holiday lands on a weekend, it gets "observed" on a weekday. Here's exactly how the substitution rules work — and the one exception that catches people out.
Read article →For NZ employees with overseas employers, or managers with distributed teams — how to handle public holidays, time zones and the employee vs contractor distinction.
Read article →Everything about New Zealand's 17 regional anniversary days — which regions observe which days, how dates are calculated, and the three special cases that follow entirely different rules.
Read article →Auckland Anniversary Day is the most commercially significant regional holiday in NZ. Here's when it falls each year, the history behind it, and what payroll teams need to know.
Read article →The nine stars of Matariki, the centuries-old tradition, the political journey to becoming a public holiday in 2022, and how the date is set each year through the Māori lunar calendar.
Read article →The Gallipoli campaign, the making of ANZAC Day as a national day, how it's commemorated across NZ, and the one rule that makes ANZAC Day different from every other public holiday.
Read article →The Treaty of Waitangi, its two versions, the history of 6 February as a national day, and how Waitangi Day has evolved from colonial celebration to something more complex and honest.
Read article →How New Zealand's 11 national public holidays were built up over 170 years — from the colonial inheritance of Christmas to the 2022 addition of Matariki.
Read article →Which Easter days are public holidays, how trading rules work, what's typically open on Good Friday and Easter Monday, and Easter dates from 2025 to 2028.
Read article →The history of King's Birthday (and why it's in June, not November) and Labour Day — plus dates for 2025 to 2028 and what they mean for employees.
Read article →All national public holidays and regional anniversary days from 2025 to 2028 — with iCal download for every holiday.
View Public Holiday Calendar