Public Holidays in Bali: What Closes and What Gets Crowded

Nyepi, the Balinese day of silence, is the one public holiday that comes with island-wide restrictions on visitors, and in 2027 it falls on Monday, March 8, 2027. We have found no such restrictions for Indonesia's other national holidays, though several of them create long weekends. The dates change every year and are fixed by a government decree.

How Indonesia's public holidays are set

Indonesia's public holidays are fixed each year by a joint decree of three ministers, published the year before. The decree lists the national holidays and a second group of days called collective leave, which bridge a holiday to the nearest weekend. The list for 2027 was signed in September 2026, so the dates for any trip can be checked well ahead.

National holidays and collective leave

A national holiday is a day off for the country. A collective leave day is an extra day attached to a holiday. For a visitor, the two together show when Indonesians have a long stretch of days off, and those are the periods to look at when you choose travel dates.

Many faiths, one calendar

Indonesia's holiday list covers several religions, which is why it contains Islamic, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Chinese festivals alongside the civic ones. Several of them follow lunar calendars, so they land on different Western dates each year. A list from last year's trip report is no guide to this year's.

The 2027 public holidays

Indonesia's national holidays for 2027, as fixed by the joint decree, run through the whole year. The dates most likely to touch a Bali trip are listed here, with the collective leave days that extend them. Check the current decree for any other year.

• January 1: New Year's Day.
• February 6: Chinese New Year, with collective leave on February 5.
• March 8: Nyepi.
• March 10 and 11: Eid al-Fitr, with collective leave on March 9, 12 and 15.
• March 26: Good Friday, with collective leave on March 25.
• May 1: Labor Day. May 6: Ascension Day.
• May 17: Eid al-Adha, with collective leave on May 18.
• May 20: Vesak, with collective leave on May 19.
• June 1: Pancasila Day. June 6: Islamic New Year.
• August 17: Independence Day.
• December 25: Christmas, with collective leave on December 24.

The March 2027 cluster

March 2027 is unusual. Nyepi on March 8 is followed directly by Eid al-Fitr on March 10 and 11, with collective leave on March 9, 12 and 15. Counting the weekends, the holidays and leave days run without a working day from Saturday, March 6, to Monday, March 15, and Bali's day of silence falls inside that stretch.

Nyepi is the day with restrictions

Nyepi is different in kind from every other holiday on the list. On Nyepi, mobile data and television and radio broadcasts in Bali are switched off for 24 hours, from 6 a.m. to 6 a.m., under a ministerial circular issued each year. Press reports of the airport operator's 2026 announcement describe all regular commercial flights halting for the same 24 hours.

What it means for a trip

According to press reports of the joint appeal issued by Bali's authorities each year, residents and tourists alike stay inside their accommodation for the day. On that evidence, plan on being unable to fly in, fly out or go out on Nyepi, and confirm your own flight with your airline if your dates fall near it, and read our Nyepi guide before you book.

The date moves

Nyepi follows the Balinese Saka calendar. It fell on March 19 in 2026 and falls on March 8 in 2027. Any trip in March needs its dates checked against that year's Nyepi before the flights are bought.

What the other holidays change

Indonesia's other national holidays are fixed by the same decree, and the decree does nothing more than set days off. Nyepi's restrictions come from separate measures specific to that day, and we have found none for the other holidays. What a long weekend changes is how many people are traveling at the same time as you, because Bali is a holiday destination for Indonesians too.

What we cannot tell you

We have not found an official source that says which shops, attractions or offices in Bali close on which holiday, or by how much prices and traffic rise, so we are not going to state any of it as fact. A government office is the safest thing to assume closed on a national holiday. For anything else that matters to your plans, ask the business.

Immigration and other offices

One practical consequence follows from the calendar itself. A visa extension now requires a photograph and an interview at an immigration office, and an office visit cannot happen on a day the office is shut. If your first 30 days end near a cluster of holidays, start the extension earlier.

Balinese festivals that are not national holidays

Bali's own religious calendar adds festival days that do not appear in the national decree. The best known are Galungan and Kuningan, which come every 210 days. In 2027 Galungan falls on January 13 and August 11, with Kuningan ten days after each. Those days decorate the island; they do not close it.

Ceremonies happen every week

Temple anniversaries, cremations and village ceremonies take place throughout the year on dates set locally. No national list covers them. A road closed for a procession is part of travel in Bali, and the practical answer is a schedule with room in it.

How to check your own dates

Checking a Bali trip against the holiday calendar takes a few minutes and is worth doing before you buy flights. Look up that year's Nyepi date first, because it is the only one that can stop an arrival or a departure. Then look at the national list for long weekends, and at the Galungan dates if you would like to see the festival.

Our advice on choosing dates

Our advice is to avoid arriving or leaving within a day of Nyepi unless you are coming for it on purpose, and to book accommodation early for any stay that overlaps a long Indonesian weekend. How these dates sit against the rest of a trip is worked through in the complete Bali trip guide.