Public holidays Benin 2026: calendar, pay and 2027

Public holidays Benin 2026 number fourteen: New Year’s Day (Thursday 1 January), the traditional religions festival (Thursday 8 and Friday 9 January), end of Ramadan (Friday 20 March), Easter Monday (Monday 6 April), Labour Day (Friday 1 May), Ascension (Thursday 14 May), Whit Monday (Monday 25 May), Tabaski (Wednesday 27 May), National Day (Saturday 1 August), Assumption (Saturday 15 August), Maouloud (Tuesday 25 August), All Saints’ Day (Sunday 1 November) and Christmas (Friday 25 December). Updated 13 November 2026.

Two texts govern the list: Law n° 90-019 of 27 July 1990 setting the statutory holidays (fêtes légales) of the Republic of Benin, and Law n° 2024-32 of 2 September 2024, which moved the traditional religions festival.

In brief

• Fourteen paid days off in 2026, two of them for the traditional religions festival.
• Statutory holidays are days off with pay (Law n° 90-019, article 2): a holiday is never deducted from a payslip.
• The Labour Code does not list the holidays: its article 157 refers to “a specific law”.
• No automatic roll-over when a holiday falls on a Sunday, and no bridge day as of right.

Calendar of public holidays Benin 2026

Eleven of the fourteen public holidays Benin 2026 fall on a weekday. Three are lost to an employee working Monday to Friday: National Day and Assumption on a Saturday, All Saints’ Day on a Sunday. May alone carries four.

What the law says about public holidays Benin 2026

The Beninese Labour Code, Law n° 98-004 of 27 January 1998, carries no list of holidays. Its section on rest periods is two articles long: article 156 makes weekly rest compulsory, at least twenty-four consecutive hours and in principle on Sunday; article 157 states that “the days off with pay are determined by a specific law”. That law is the 1990 one.

• Law n° 90-019, article 1: twelve statutory holidays — 1 January, 1 May, 1 August, 15 August, 1 November, 25 December, Easter Monday, Whit Monday, Ascension, end of Ramadan, Tabaski and Maouloud.
• Law n° 90-019, article 2: “Statutory holidays are days off with pay.” There is therefore no unpaid public holiday in Benin.
• Law n° 2024-32, articles 2 and 3: the traditional religions festival falls on the second Friday of January; that Friday and the Thursday before it are days off with pay.
• Labour Code, article 158: the working days counted against annual leave exclude the weekly rest day and “any public holidays”.

Fixed dates and movable dates

Six of the public holidays Benin 2026 have a fixed date written into the 1990 law. Three follow Easter, which fell on Sunday 5 April 2026. Three depend on the Hijri calendar, and the two days of the traditional religions festival are recalculated every year.

The Vodoun festival is no longer on 10 January

This is the change schedules missed most often. The annual traditional religions festival, long held on 10 January, was recast by Law n° 2024-32, which repeals Law n° 97-031 of 20 August 1997. It now falls on the second Friday of January, and two days are off with pay, not one: 8 and 9 January 2026, then 7 and 8 January 2027. A payroll calendar still set to “10 January” creates a phantom holiday and misses two real ones.

Muslim festivals: who sets the date among public holidays Benin 2026

End of Ramadan, Tabaski and Maouloud follow the lunar calendar and cannot be scheduled a year ahead. The ministry in charge of labour and the civil service issues a communiqué a few days before, declaring the day a paid holiday across the whole territory, “in accordance with Law n° 90-019 of 27 July 1990”. That communiqué is what counts, not an imported calendar.

In 2026, Friday 20 March was declared a holiday for the end of Ramadan, Wednesday 27 May for Tabaski and Tuesday 25 August for Maouloud. None of the three 2027 dates can be announced today: treat them as provisional and lock field schedules only once the communiqué is out. A 2024 private member’s bill would have made the following Monday a paid day off when these festivals fall on a Sunday; it was not passed.

Paying public holidays Benin 2026: what is owed

The principle is short: the day is off and paid. Stopping work on a statutory holiday triggers no deduction. A monthly-paid employee keeps their gross pay; an hourly or daily-paid worker must not see their pay cut for the day.

For work actually performed on a holiday, the Code sets no automatic doubling. What article 147 sets are the minimum overtime premiums, that is, for hours beyond the legal forty-hour week of article 142:

• Daytime overtime: 12 % of the hourly rate from the 41st to the 48th hour, 35 % beyond the 48th hour, 50 % on Sundays and public holidays.
• Night overtime (9 p.m. to 5 a.m.): 50 % of the hourly rate on weekdays, 100 % on Sundays and public holidays.

These are floors that a collective agreement cannot lower; the general collective agreement repeats the same percentages. The overtime an employer may impose is capped at two hundred and forty hours per calendar year per employee (article 145), without exceeding sixty hours a week or twelve hours a day (article 146).

A worked example

Take a maintenance crew paid 150 000 FCFA gross a month for 173.33 hours, about 865 FCFA an hour. Off on Friday 25 December, they keep their 150 000 FCFA. If a technician works eight hours that day, beyond the fortieth hour of their week, those hours are worth at least 1 298 FCFA each, close to 10 380 FCFA on top of the monthly pay. For the move from gross to net, see our guide to the net salary calculation in Benin.

Sundays, bridge days and make-up hours: what is not automatic

• A holiday falling on a Sunday is not moved. The official communiqué declared All Saints’ Day a holiday on Sunday 1 November 2026, with nothing shifted to Monday 2. The same goes for Saturday 1 and Saturday 15 August.
• Bridge days do not exist as of right. No text allows the day before or after a statutory holiday to be declared a holiday. It is a company decision: taken as leave, made up, or granted — but written into a staff notice.
• Making up hours follows article 148. Its rules are set by order of the minister in charge of labour. Hours made up are not overtime and cannot push past the ceilings of article 146.

Common mistakes and payroll settings

The fourteen public holidays Benin 2026 hit three counters: hours clocked, leave balances, gross monthly pay. The costliest mistakes:

• Closing only on the Friday of the traditional religions festival and forgetting the Thursday.
• Keeping 10 January in the payroll calendar.
• Moving a Sunday holiday to the Monday.
• Confusing statutory holidays with national days: Remembrance Day on 16 January and Women’s Day on 8 March are not in article 1 of the 1990 law.
• Planning nothing for field teams. Security, logistics, healthcare, service stations: work goes on, and those hours must be tracked to trigger the right premium.

On the tooling side, the holiday calendar must be configurable per country and editable mid-year, to absorb a communiqué published the day before. Clocking must separate normal hours, overtime and hours worked on a Sunday or a holiday: three different payslip lines, and the job of a time and attendance software. Leave taken around bridge days should follow a traceable route, which is what HR validation workflows do. The rest is contract hygiene, covered in our guides to the employment contract in Benin, leave management in Benin and payroll management in Benin. Both laws are published by the General Secretariat of the Government of Benin, which also hosts the 1998 Labour Code.

After public holidays Benin 2026, the 2027 markers

The six fixed dates do not move. Easter falls on Sunday 28 March 2027: Easter Monday on 29 March, Ascension on Thursday 6 May, Whit Monday on 17 May. The traditional religions festival will take Thursday 7 and Friday 8 January. The three Muslim festivals still hang on the sighting of the moon.

The year will be less favourable than public holidays Benin 2026: Labour Day and Christmas on a Saturday, National Day and Assumption on a Sunday. Four days lost to an employee on a standard week, against three in 2026.

Frequently asked questions

What are the public holidays in Benin in 2026?

Fourteen: 1 January, 8 and 9 January, 20 March, 6 April, 1, 14, 25 and 27 May, 1, 15 and 25 August, 1 November and 25 December.

How many public holidays a year are there in Benin?

Law n° 90-019 lists twelve, to which Law n° 2024-32 adds two days for the traditional religions festival: fourteen public holidays Benin 2026.

Is a worked public holiday paid double in Benin?

Not automatically: the day is already off and paid. Hours worked that day carry a premium of at least 50 % as daytime overtime, at least 100 % at night (article 147 of the Labour Code).

Is the Vodoun festival a public holiday?

Yes, under the name traditional religions festival, and it is worth two paid days off: the second Friday of January and the Thursday before. It has not been fixed to 10 January since Law n° 2024-32.

What happens if a public holiday falls on a Sunday?

Nothing is carried over. No text in force moves the holiday to the following Monday: the day is a holiday on its own date.

Are Easter Monday and Whit Monday holidays in Benin?

Yes, both are named in article 1 of Law n° 90-019, alongside Ascension Day.

Does a holiday during my leave cost me a day?

No. Article 158 of the Labour Code excludes the weekly rest day and any public holidays from the count of working days of leave.

What is the next public holiday in Benin?

Christmas, Friday 25 December 2026, the last of the public holidays Benin 2026. Then New Year’s Day 2027, followed by 7 and 8 January.

Key takeaways

• Fourteen public holidays Benin 2026, eleven of them on weekdays.
• Two texts, not one: Law n° 90-019 of 27 July 1990 and Law n° 2024-32 of 2 September 2024.
• Every statutory holiday is a day off with pay: never a deduction on the payslip.
• No statutory doubling for a worked holiday, but a minimum of 50 % on daytime overtime and 100 % at night.
• No Sunday roll-over and no bridge day as of right: whatever the law leaves out is decided, and written down, inside the company.

To apply the statutory holiday calendar, the clocking of public holidays Benin 2026 and the article 147 premiums across your payroll, book a Socium demo.